Pick one, stop trying to make Windows look like a decent os. My local Windows install just gave up. I'm very close to trying Windows 11 in a VM on top of Fedora or whatever, can't really do that on my 16gb ram value laptop though.
If Maschine offered official Linux support, that's what I make music with, I'd be 100% Windows free.
NexRebular · 3m ago
Or if you'd prefer not to contribute to linux monoculturalization, FreeBSD is available in addition to the other BSD variants and even illumos-based systems.
cookiengineer · 8m ago
Pick KDE if you want the same integrated experience.
The Desktop on Linux has come pretty far already and most of the complaints are from people that made the wrong choice for their UX.
Sometimes setting up a WINE environment is worth it, but I'd argue that as long ss you still need to use the CLI to create environments, it's not there yet. Proton has been amazing for better support.
Also, don't pick Arch when you come from Windows, it's not the right choice for you. Pick a beginner friendly distro, everyone has to start somewhere. Debian, LinuxMint, or Ubuntu are incredibly easy to learn.
vivzkestrel · 50m ago
Microsoft should create a new windows option in addition to Home, Professional and Pro and call this one "Windows OPTIMAL" They can price this 3x if they want but it has 0 bloatware, 0 telemetry or atleast everything can be disabled at the time of installation. It is literally windows designed from the ground up for maximum performance, runs as smooth as windows 7 or xp used to back in the good old days
PeterStuer · 39m ago
They wont as it would be admitting their 'normal' offering is anti-consumer.
danieldk · 21m ago
Also, this is also the case with ad-disabling subscriptions, the people who have the disposable income to buy non-ad versions are the most interesting to a lot of advertisers.
dijit · 15m ago
isn’t this IoT LTSC?
thats what i use it for, comes with no new feature updates (which is sometimes annoying as some software depends on some Windows feature updates) and you have to buy 5x licences- and its more expensive. but it works.
QQ00 · 39m ago
for no telemetry and half the bloatware you can always use the enterprise version. it's also (n)x the price. there also the iot version which is more stripped down and get only security updates, no features updates or other craps.
I don't think we will ever see a new version the way you described it, the amount of information Microsoft get from spying and telemetry is so much more profitable they even gave 10/11 for free.
vivzkestrel · 18m ago
i want to be able to run games on it without a 100 programs running in the background. if Microsoft engineers really put their mind to it, they could create such an OS offering dedicated for gaming with literally nothing consuming your CPU and FPS except the game you are running
yifanl · 9m ago
BigTech arent interested in developing efficient products while they have a captive audience.
picafrost · 1h ago
There is something so fundamentally gross about Microsoft's vision of what role an operating system should serve. That there is an aftermarket of software that attempts to disable (but cannot remove!) the invasive dark patterns is alarming enough, but Microsoft may simply just... undo that, with the next unstoppable update.
Then again, this is the company that answered complaints about Windows being bad for development by embedding an OS that is good for development and calling that an innovation rather than an acknowledgement that Windows is bad.
wtallis · 38m ago
> answered complaints about Windows being bad for development by embedding an OS that is good for development and calling that an innovation
Well, they actually did it twice in recent history: WSL 1 was relatively innovative, integrating Linux application compatibility into the Windows operating system itself. But that turned out to still be bad for development because it meant Linux software was now subjected to the performance problems of the Windows IO stack. So they responded with WSL 2, an ordinary Linux VM. And separately they also introduced the "Dev Drive" feature to let you create a filesystem that bypassed the worst parts of the Windows IO stack.
PeterStuer · 36m ago
They allow these aftermarket products to work/exist as long as they remain niche. It keeps a select audience that would have jumped ship on Windows.
The moment these 'solutions' would get mainstream traction they will be shut down.
It's good to see that there still are some modders left in the community; there are others creating unofficial "distros" of Windows with most of the crap stripped out, and often useful additions: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=34654649
From my experience, Windows has always been somewhat modular (see 98lite for an early example), so it's not too difficult to pick and choose what pieces you want, but the main worry is that one of these hostile features is a dependency of a core component.
but do keep in mind that there is a risk associated with customizing your Windows installation in unintended ways
Of course there is this obligatory FUD from the Microsoft-fansite. In contrast to the risk associated with letting Microsoft absorb all your data and take control of your computer?
everyone · 2h ago
Im assuming MS will always have one secret good version of windows for enterprise? Eg. I have Win 10 LTSC 2021 which runs out in 2032.. I assume when that runs out there will be some replacement good version of windows?
I also installed Linux Mint which I am trying to do as much as possible on. Its really fantastic, its crazy how it "just works".. The most intuitive and user friendly OS ive ever used.. I just do a lot of weird game and game-dev stuff that I still need Windows for.. If I didnt do that stuff I would 100% be on Mint..
And that is changing with Steam, Wine, Bottles, Proton, Lutris, the amount of stuff u cant do keeps shrinking and it keeps getting easier and easier.
Most people on earth should be using Linux, it would be objectively better and easier to do everything they want to do on their computer compared to all the other popular OSes.
lock1 · 45m ago
> Most people on earth should be using Linux
I don't think the current state of the Linux desktop is ready for that. Linux desktop still loves to show its sharp edges from time to time. Sure, I do also think most of Windows stuff now "just works" on Linux; Proton & Wine already cover a lot of "Windows-only" app I need and I only boot to Windows when I need to change some proprietary driver config.
However, I think "just works" here is different from the general population definition of "just works". HN folks probably don't even mind writing their own patches or compiling stuff for themself. But for the general population, people don't even change the default settings, let alone follow a tutorial or type in some commands on their terminal. People delegate this stuff to more "techie" people around them or dial customer support.
I don't think there will be a mass adoption of Linux desktop until this part gets ironed out or somehow everyone is forced to install Linux by their employer/school.
everyone · 23m ago
What would a normal person need to open terminal for though? In my recent experience with Mint I never needed it for anything normal.. eg wifi and bluetooth on laptop all just worked perfectly after install.. for installing software there is a gUI app store type thing.. for games u just install steam and it works exactly like on windows.
Still, I've been using computers for 30 years and I'm starting to feel the itch to look for Linux alternatives and I'm pretty old. Change does do not comes easily to old people. This is bad for ms.
mamonoleechi · 52m ago
If you want to switch to linux but not feeling overwhelmed at first, you can stay on windows and work with something like Virtualbox running your linux distribution of choice alongside.
You keep on testing/experimenting daily, slowly getting the hang of it one software at a time. And once you found how to do everything you have to on linux, you're just ready to switch.
majkinetor · 14m ago
The same. I used Linux a lot a decade ago, and all this MS mumbo jumbo with Win11 is totally disappointing and irritating, to the point that next OS will definitely be Mint. I envisioned that this might happen eventually, so I never locked in to any Windows tools, I use exclusively cross-platform tools. I live most of my OS time in powershell, vscode and firefox, so no problems there.
Constantly fighting MS irresponsible decisions makes no sense any more.
anal_reactor · 15m ago
I've said this once because we've already had discussions "Windows bad", but I jumped ship too. My experience is different though. I installed Linux Mint - it doesn't work and it won't work. Quick search shows that Fedora KDE is the only distribution that actually supports graphics stack from current century, and doesn't have community drama around it (Ubuntu). I installed it. I keep running into weird issues like graphical glitches, devices randomly not working, shit needing fixing with complicated terminal commands, programs not behaving in expected ways, update regressions, and all the good stuff that Linux on desktop is known for. But we're definitely way closer to Linux being a working desktop system than we've ever been, and it gives me an impression that a dedicated tech-savvy person could potentially actually use it. I haven't booted into Windows for two weeks, and I think there's a decent chance I won't need in the foreseeable future.
majkinetor · 12m ago
Your experience with Mint is definitely discouraging.
magic_hamster · 1h ago
Mint is in a good place right now. I enjoy it immensely on most of my daily devices. Still stuck with MacOS for work which I lament.
CommanderData · 1h ago
"Works for now"
There's been many such tools for other anti-features, they eventually stop working.
Zopieux · 27m ago
Still better than nothing. It's no secret maintainers need to play catch-up with Microsoft. This is the entire value-add of all those cool pro-consumer/user tools which use private & undocumented APIs, like yt-dlp.
ChrisNorstrom · 2h ago
I'm honestly still shocked there isn't some kind of lawsuit or federal investigation on how Microsoft is able to get away with dropping support for CPUs that are only a few years old. Thus forcing unknown millions of people worldwide to upgrade an ENTIRE CPU and Motherboard just for the next version of Windows. What are we supposed to do with all that e-waste?! People who spent thousands on a 32 core threadripper from 5 years ago are now suppose to just... throw it away and buy another 32 core threadripper?!
None of the 7 computers in our house have processors that are supported. Just the AMD Threadripper 2000 series and earlier that launched in 2018 (just 7 years ago) are not supported. That's a massive amount of CPUs about to hit ebay probably at huge discounts.
I'm hoping the Linux community takes advantage of this moment and focuses heavily on converting Windows users to Linux + Bottles.
Aurornis · 1h ago
If you’re talking about Threadripper 2000 series, just grab the official ISO and install it. Should work despite not being on the officially fully supported list.
> I'm honestly still shocked there isn't some kind of lawsuit or federal investigation on how Microsoft is able to get away with dropping support for CPUs that are only a few years old.
There is no law that requires a company to make their new product compatible with a different company’s 7 year old hardware. I don’t know why you’d expect this to become a lawsuit or federal investigation.
No comments yet
whyoh · 1h ago
>dropping support for CPUs that are only a few years old
Isn't it only 2017 CPUs and older? So that's at least ~9 years of free updates (free updates stop at the end of 2026 with the extension), which is frankly better than most other OSs.
If you include paid ESU updates it's at least ~11 years and if you include LTSC it's even way longer than that.
There are many things we can complain about when it comes to Windows, but I wouldn't say long term support is one of them. It's generally better than macOS or Linux distros, not to mention smartphones.
troupo · 1h ago
> Isn't it only 2017 CPUs and older? So that's at least ~9 years of free updates (free updates stop at the end of 2026 with the extension), which is frankly better than most other OSs.
That's the indictment of the industry, not a praise for Microsoft.
dbetteridge · 1h ago
It sucks but it's not illegal?
Private business has made the choice to not support a set of processors on their os.
Run Windows 10 ltsc or move to Unix or Linux if that's an issue
lloydatkinson · 1h ago
Haven’t seen anyone mention it yet but 11 runs perfectly fine on older provided your CPU has POPCNT - which apparently was introduced in 2008.
Rufus can create a bootable USB drive with the 11 installer modified* to bypass the other artificial requirements like TPM and bypass the stupid “need internet access to force you to make a Microsoft account” requirement too.
"Thus forcing unknown millions of people worldwide to upgrade an ENTIRE CPU and Motherboard just for the next version of Windows"
I don't know why you must come conclusion at this point, no one force you to upgrade into next version
as far as I know, when you buy windows 10 license, you tied into certain edition that would work for that edition. nothing mention next OS (in this case windows11) should backward compatible with last edition
if you think 7-8 years is bad, think how much smartphone that not receive update for years, most often that this phone didn't receive update at all
and google and apple literally making new edition of android/ios that break depedency every year
Moru · 59m ago
Windows has always been backward compatible with old hardware. There has never been a big problem where you couldn't just upgrade to next version on the same computer. This big jump is not a good one for MS, it is locking out a lot of people that would be customers and are now getting Linux Mint instead. I have several friends that are non-techies and installed Mint on their own without any problems. No support needed even, nothing close to how they need support for Windows. They have dualboot so their old games work on Windows and everything else on Linux. Sooner or later that will be gaming on Linux and Windows never get booted again.
sixtyj · 1h ago
This.
The worst death is from fright. So let’s keep calm. Because Win 10 will work after October 2025.
userbinator · 50m ago
just for the next version of Windows
...which you probably didn't need either, so just refuse to upgrade and start pushing back that way.
rolph · 2h ago
I'm honestly still shocked how much of this malarchy users will just lay down for.
the way MS gets away with it is by making people think they have no other choice.
Fedora.
Arch.
Open Suse .
Pick one, stop trying to make Windows look like a decent os. My local Windows install just gave up. I'm very close to trying Windows 11 in a VM on top of Fedora or whatever, can't really do that on my 16gb ram value laptop though.
If Maschine offered official Linux support, that's what I make music with, I'd be 100% Windows free.
The Desktop on Linux has come pretty far already and most of the complaints are from people that made the wrong choice for their UX.
Sometimes setting up a WINE environment is worth it, but I'd argue that as long ss you still need to use the CLI to create environments, it's not there yet. Proton has been amazing for better support.
Also, don't pick Arch when you come from Windows, it's not the right choice for you. Pick a beginner friendly distro, everyone has to start somewhere. Debian, LinuxMint, or Ubuntu are incredibly easy to learn.
thats what i use it for, comes with no new feature updates (which is sometimes annoying as some software depends on some Windows feature updates) and you have to buy 5x licences- and its more expensive. but it works.
I don't think we will ever see a new version the way you described it, the amount of information Microsoft get from spying and telemetry is so much more profitable they even gave 10/11 for free.
Then again, this is the company that answered complaints about Windows being bad for development by embedding an OS that is good for development and calling that an innovation rather than an acknowledgement that Windows is bad.
Well, they actually did it twice in recent history: WSL 1 was relatively innovative, integrating Linux application compatibility into the Windows operating system itself. But that turned out to still be bad for development because it meant Linux software was now subjected to the performance problems of the Windows IO stack. So they responded with WSL 2, an ordinary Linux VM. And separately they also introduced the "Dev Drive" feature to let you create a filesystem that bypassed the worst parts of the Windows IO stack.
The moment these 'solutions' would get mainstream traction they will be shut down.
From my experience, Windows has always been somewhat modular (see 98lite for an early example), so it's not too difficult to pick and choose what pieces you want, but the main worry is that one of these hostile features is a dependency of a core component.
but do keep in mind that there is a risk associated with customizing your Windows installation in unintended ways
Of course there is this obligatory FUD from the Microsoft-fansite. In contrast to the risk associated with letting Microsoft absorb all your data and take control of your computer?
I also installed Linux Mint which I am trying to do as much as possible on. Its really fantastic, its crazy how it "just works".. The most intuitive and user friendly OS ive ever used.. I just do a lot of weird game and game-dev stuff that I still need Windows for.. If I didnt do that stuff I would 100% be on Mint.. And that is changing with Steam, Wine, Bottles, Proton, Lutris, the amount of stuff u cant do keeps shrinking and it keeps getting easier and easier. Most people on earth should be using Linux, it would be objectively better and easier to do everything they want to do on their computer compared to all the other popular OSes.
I don't think the current state of the Linux desktop is ready for that. Linux desktop still loves to show its sharp edges from time to time. Sure, I do also think most of Windows stuff now "just works" on Linux; Proton & Wine already cover a lot of "Windows-only" app I need and I only boot to Windows when I need to change some proprietary driver config.
However, I think "just works" here is different from the general population definition of "just works". HN folks probably don't even mind writing their own patches or compiling stuff for themself. But for the general population, people don't even change the default settings, let alone follow a tutorial or type in some commands on their terminal. People delegate this stuff to more "techie" people around them or dial customer support.
I don't think there will be a mass adoption of Linux desktop until this part gets ironed out or somehow everyone is forced to install Linux by their employer/school.
Still, I've been using computers for 30 years and I'm starting to feel the itch to look for Linux alternatives and I'm pretty old. Change does do not comes easily to old people. This is bad for ms.
You keep on testing/experimenting daily, slowly getting the hang of it one software at a time. And once you found how to do everything you have to on linux, you're just ready to switch.
Constantly fighting MS irresponsible decisions makes no sense any more.
There's been many such tools for other anti-features, they eventually stop working.
None of the 7 computers in our house have processors that are supported. Just the AMD Threadripper 2000 series and earlier that launched in 2018 (just 7 years ago) are not supported. That's a massive amount of CPUs about to hit ebay probably at huge discounts.
I'm hoping the Linux community takes advantage of this moment and focuses heavily on converting Windows users to Linux + Bottles.
> I'm honestly still shocked there isn't some kind of lawsuit or federal investigation on how Microsoft is able to get away with dropping support for CPUs that are only a few years old.
There is no law that requires a company to make their new product compatible with a different company’s 7 year old hardware. I don’t know why you’d expect this to become a lawsuit or federal investigation.
No comments yet
Isn't it only 2017 CPUs and older? So that's at least ~9 years of free updates (free updates stop at the end of 2026 with the extension), which is frankly better than most other OSs.
If you include paid ESU updates it's at least ~11 years and if you include LTSC it's even way longer than that.
There are many things we can complain about when it comes to Windows, but I wouldn't say long term support is one of them. It's generally better than macOS or Linux distros, not to mention smartphones.
That's the indictment of the industry, not a praise for Microsoft.
Run Windows 10 ltsc or move to Unix or Linux if that's an issue
Rufus can create a bootable USB drive with the 11 installer modified* to bypass the other artificial requirements like TPM and bypass the stupid “need internet access to force you to make a Microsoft account” requirement too.
https://rufus.ie/en/
*change some flags in the installer
I don't know why you must come conclusion at this point, no one force you to upgrade into next version
as far as I know, when you buy windows 10 license, you tied into certain edition that would work for that edition. nothing mention next OS (in this case windows11) should backward compatible with last edition
if you think 7-8 years is bad, think how much smartphone that not receive update for years, most often that this phone didn't receive update at all
and google and apple literally making new edition of android/ios that break depedency every year
The worst death is from fright. So let’s keep calm. Because Win 10 will work after October 2025.
...which you probably didn't need either, so just refuse to upgrade and start pushing back that way.
the way MS gets away with it is by making people think they have no other choice.