Can’t wait for the “FOSS enables the bad guys to download 2 marijuanas” headlines from MSM.
Swapped over to Mint a couple days ago, it plays ATOM RPG so I am contented with my slave jank.
Zorin would t be my first choice. But happy to see those numbers.
I’m far more bothered by them making Brave the built-in default browser, than I am by them charging for themes & tech support.
I am a macOS user for work and had windows mostly for games on my personal computer, when I got a new laptop last year it came with win 11… it was so annoying to need to skip literally ads for Microsoft services… that even being my “leisure” computer… I spent the time getting Linux Mint, deal with Nvidia drivers on Linux just to have steam there
The games I am playing recently are working great on Linux and my computer feels faster now.
This particular laptop had a problem with WiFi drivers and Nvidia drivers, but getting past this first setup, I must say Linux Destop is easier and fast to use.
I keep hearing about ads on computers, smart tvs, fridges and shit, is that solely an american thing? I’m in Europe and never get any of that shit. Sure, Microsoft will tell me at installation that they’d like to “personalize” some adds for me, but I have never actually had a single one. Did the EU block them or something?
It might be the version of Windows 11 you have installed, too. Enterprise has no ads (or can be configured not to have ads, at least). Same for Professional, I think?
You can also use a post-install “Playbook” to rip all the adware and spyware out of Windows. I used ReviOS in my Windows 11 VM and it works well for me, but I’m guessing that’s not what you’ve done since you’d know about it, lol.
I’m super happy with my switch to CachyOS. Canadian laws roughly mirror US laws, so it’s a breath of fresh air to not need to deal with Microsoft’s bullshit (well, outside of the VM I need for work, anyway.)
You can also use a post-install “Playbook” to rip all the adware and spyware out of Windows
Does that actually persist across forced updates? I know they’ve been known to re-install things on updates before.
I just have windows 11 home
Ms has different releases for Europe due to legal requirements
This is why you have no ads
I just bought a machine with an NVIDIA card which I am going to install Mint on. Do you have any advice?
(I had planned to get an AMD GPU, but was unable to for various reasons.)
Mint worked the best for me out of the other distros. 3060ti
Multiple monitor setup. One a 4k tv via HDMI others display port.
Had a helluva time getting it to not fuck the displays when one went on/off with anything other than mint.
YRMV
Send it! I’ve heard it has gotten better for nvidia users. The nice thing about a live USB is that you can just remove it and reboot if you don’t like it.
More Windows refugees should flee to the Kingdom of Torvalds.
I really hope these people don’t accept that it’s normal to charge for different desktop environments.
They are just different layouts for Gnome, but it’s annoying that they call what is essentially a donation to them a Pro edition. A donate button would likely make more as it feels philanphropic.
I think it is very purposeful that Zorin has expansive marketing and frames features in terms of price value.
You do realize that includes support, right? Last time I checked, that is very much not a donation.
This is a good point, particularly in the context of value for new users. My comment is more regarding the precedent of framing desktop environments as some sort of premium feature. I do question how much value users still get out of that though, since so many Linux distros have communities that provide essentially the same service for free with a bit more labour on the user.
They’re not doing anything that’s violating licenses. I’m happy there’s different options. Having paid support is pretty cool if you’re a school or never ran Linux before. Other users will choose other distros. We should be happy, not tear into each other.
My concern is more oriented toward how capitalization of consumer-facing Linux will look if it proves to be a profitable site of expansion with Windows’ decline in popularity. I don’t care about licenses or the utility of the feature, though I do question its value when there are free options. The support is the more valuable thing, but again I worry about this success given that other distros have communities that serve the same purpose for free with only a little more labour from the user. It’s a good thing this is happening at all, but we should be critical of how it happens.
Someday Microsoft might realize that Windows should be rolling‑based, like CachyOS. By that time, it will be too late for them to catch up and bring everyone back to Windows.
That’s literally what Windows 10 was supposed to be. “The last version of windows”. Does no one remember that?
I by no means want to defend Microsoft. But I’m pretty sure that was said by an overzealous marketing person who didn’t understand correctly, and this was corrected by Microsoft soon after.
Maybe they should have listened to him instead of correcting him.
I think they really meant it at the time - but needed Windows 11 in order to really shove AI down people’s throats.
I remember. I also remember Windows 8 which was supposed to make everything metro stylish and convenient, with tiling, ARM version, claims of being optimized and good for updating even on oldish boxes.
Same times as Nokia Lumia.
Ah a windows 8. I remember reading the promo materials for it. An OS designed around touch, with the goal of doubling the number of touch enabled PCs on the market.
Guess how many PCs were touch-enabled when windows 8 launched…
1.5%. Whomever is driving at Microsoft needs to be moved to an Amish community and prevented from interacting with any kind of electrical device ever again.
Articles for 2013 are still available? It was ~10% for all laptops launched in 2013.
In 2023 The penetration is ~20% so by these metrics they did double the number of touch enabled PCs. It just took a decade too long.
In fact in 2012 - Intel did a study that said 80% of users prefer a touch screen. https://www.neowin.net/news/intel-80-percent-of-pc-users-prefer-touch-screens/
Windows 8 came out in 2012, and was in development years before that.
Windows 8 is a major release of the Windows NT operating system developed by Microsoft. It was released to manufacturing on August 1, 2012, made available for download via MSDN and TechNet on August 15, 2012, and generally released for retail on October 26, 2012
Laptops is a subset of PCs. Only 10% of laptops were touch, not 10% of computers.
80% of users are dumb. A touchscreen laptop is an expesnive way to get your screen dirty.
Back in the day my not-so-tech-savvy colleague bought a Windows 8.1 laptop that had a touchscreen. After two days she brought it to me and asked me if I could “rip this hellspawn out of this computer”.
Before wiping it we checked if there was anything to backup and the ~30 minutes I spent using Win 8.1 were hideous. It was the only time I ever had to use it, of which I am very grateful.
Just installed CachyOS. It just works.
Never going back
Use Cachy for a while. Not a single issue so far. Very good distro for people who want the OS out of the way. The perfect compatibility with Nvidia is a plus!
Yeah I waited till I had a new gpu, got amd.
But yeah, reinstalled all the arr* stuff I had on windows and other services as podman services, got steam, played a few games. Some Linux native. Some Proton.
Transfered all my stuff then formatted my ntfs disks did btrfs
Never felt like anything pushed back on what I wanted. Was silky smooth.
Never once had to even think about if I had drivers for my things, logitech lightning mouse, wireless headset etc
Alternatively, just… keeps Windows 10.
Am I crazy? Like, I would legitimately reinstall Windows 95 were it relatively feasible.
Is it really that ill-advised to rely on outside providers for additional security features?
Yes it is very ill advised as people often do important tasks on the PC including banking. In fact most people will delegate their most vulnerable tasks to be on the PC rather than the potentially more-secure mobile device.
To put this in perspective. There were 1,360 Vulnerabilities reported in 2024 for Windows. Not a single one will be patched after end-of-life.
There were unreported vulnerabilities that were waiting for end-of-life to be exploited.
If I release my malware a month before EOL and it’s caught then I have to start from scratch. If I do it after EOL then I can reap the benefits forever.
https://www.insurancejournal.com/news/national/2025/04/21/820580.htm
I’m gonna make it 780,001 today.
How many computers do you have ?!
At least Bill Gates won’t be able to afford the third home for a distant cousin he’s never met. /s
I think he could afford homes for any distant cousins, probably to the 15th degree
How popular is it against other distros? First I’ve heard of it (admittedly doesn’t say much since I’m used to the older ones), which makes me wonder how close to a million people did. Did influencers spread the word or something?
I’ve noticed Zorin does a lot of marketing and it comes in waves, you won’t hear anything for months then it’ll be everywhere for a few days.
I downloaded Mint last week and started the installation but got cold feet when it came to drive formatting. I still want to keep my win10 operational in case I won’t be able to run something on Linux.
I never actually used Linux before… I installed it 3 times before and always quickly went back to windows due to some compatibility or driver issues, but…
<Rant mode=“venting”> I am NOT switching to win11… It’s enough that I am forced to use it at work. That system is so fuckin stupid… They took a lot of minor elements and just made each of them worse… I get that the sales department told you to shove OneDrive and Copilot everywhere, it’s stupid and annoying but I get it, it’s just plain old greed, but why can’t the Calendar show the whole month and don’t work on the second monitor?!? (Are you planning to add it as a paid subscription later?!?) </Rant>
Thank you for your attention to this matter.
One can resize the Windows partition from Windows itself, then install Linux alongside it. But have backups and be careful.
Bruh, they moved rename file. That shit has been in the same place since 3.1. Fucking why.
lol I forgot about the calendar issue
a perfect example of them making it worse for literally no reason at all
You can get a cheap ssd and install linux on it. Before installing disconect existing windows drive. After install reconnect windows drive and make sure that windows boots. Then boot to bios and choose linux as default drive and after booting to mint desktop update grub to include windows. On each boot you will be able to choose which OS you want.
I used disk2vhd to virtualize my laptop windows disk and put it on a USB stick and then got it running on Linux with VirtualBox. I’m gonna need it once a year for taxes.
I did run into some trouble getting secureboot working in virtualbox, but solved it after I figured out the kernel drivers were compressed.
Just add a new partition and dual boot, it is pretty easy.
Also I do not recommend Mint for Windows users, because the officially supported UX layers are more apple-esque. Use a distro that has KDE support baked in. Adding KDE to Mint is easy but may not be for people switching.
For that reason, I recommend going with distros with KDE Plasma by default. Kubuntu or KDE neon.
Why KDE? It feels like where Windows should have gone. It’s like the glory days of Windows (windows 2000, etc) in the modern age. It is a drastic upgrade from Windows with more freedom than you ever had.
Mint has the Cinnamon desktop environment which isn’t that different from Windows/KDE. You’re probably thinking of Gnome?
Cinnamon, to me, is an in-between, more like modern Windows, which moved in a more macos direction. KDE is like golden age Windows. Gnome is like macos.
When I used Mint (maybe 10 years ago now?), I had all kinds of problems with Cinnamon. KDE was like magic and I always use it now. Perhaps things have changed but we can only make recommendations based on our experiences and knowledge.
Aye, Cinnamon i’d say is pretty Windows like now (taskbar, start menu and tray) but definitely not as good as KDE. The average user would be happy with either I think.
I’m on Cinnamon for my first linux OS, it feels pretty Windows to me.
I’m glad to hear that, thank you for sharing.
It sounds like Windows users have a lot more options now, which is a good thing.
I do not recommend Mint for Windows users, because the officially supported UX layers are more apple-esque
you can’t have a more classic desktop look and feel than using MATE, and it’s from the same people that maintains Mint
One pretty safe way is if you get a separate drive for Linux and completely swap out the Windows one. It’s not dual booting but at least you can switch back if it doesn’t work out for you.
Just make sure you have whatever you need to get the Windows drive working again if it’s encrypted.
If you have issues with mint, try something based on Debian or Fedora rather than Ubuntu like Mint is.
For Fedora I recommend Bazzite if you do gaming and nothing too technical. Flatpaks make it easy to find and install software without messing things up. Otherwise Fedora Kiinoite.
For Debian I recommend Debian itself really. Also runs very well on much older machinery.
If you didn’t know, Ubuntu is based on Debian.
The Mint team also puts out a very stable version called LMDE which is based on Deb rather than Ubuntu.
Can’t blame them. The sloth has done so much to alienate their user base that should just kill the division
