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Forced E-Waste PCs And The Case Of Windows 11’s Trusted Platform

Technology
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  • Because it's so hard to use Rufus and make a win 11 install that bypasses the tpm requirements.

    having to use hacks to get an operating system installed shouldn't be needed.

    requiring a Microsoft account to use Windows also shouldn't even have been considered.

  • I'm pretty hesitant to find the time to install and learn Linux but I'm VERY hesitant to upgrade to Win11. I'm having trouble understanding what the selling point for it is over Win10. I feel like it used to be clear and exciting to upgrade but they've managed to make this feel sort of dreadful.

    There is no particular selling point. That's why they force it.

  • I have a custom built PC running on Windows 10, which has no TPM and therefore cannot update to Win11. I might consider Linux as an alternative on some regular laptop, but I'm afraid that my games might no longer be running if I switch the OS from Windows to Linux.

    .

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    Where’s Microsoft’s Chief Sustainability Officer on this one? Too busy looking the other way on Copilot’s massive energy usage?

  • Adding to what the others were saying, proton has an unaffiliated website for reporting purposes, protondb.com. It tallies user reports of the games working or not. The data is associated mostly with steam libraries.

    I don't have a lot of games in my steam library, relatively speaking, barely over 100. But there are zero games that would not work on Linux for me:

    In this context Platinum means it works out of the box, Gold means some users experienced minor issues (mostly older reports by nvidia users) that required some tinkering with launch options, such as setting an environment variable. Silver and Bronze mean gradually more tinkering required but still works. This excludes native apps (which do not use wine/proton) and borked apps (of which I own zero).

    Note, that this is a translation layer, not emulation, and often games can have better performance under Linux thanks to the system not getting bogged down by the OS itself.

    Also note, that 99% borked games are due to kernel level anticheat and DRM being implemented improperly by the game developer, which proton can't handle. You can still make it work under Linux, but you'd actually require emulation for that, instead of proton.

    Edit:

    Another screenshot of the top50 played saturation to show you what to expect.

    OK, thanks for the information, that sounds really interesting. I was playing Doom Eternal and Metro Exodus some time ago, but I made a bread and didn‘t pick it up anymore due to a lack of time. Many years ago I was also trying a bit of Linux on a Netbook (small notebook). By then it was really a different world than Windows.

    However, I am not sure how easy that is to manage with getting the right Linux distribution, then Wine, then Proton and then getting all tricks and tweaks right… - I am not a tech expert, so leaving a system that works out of the box is a bit of a hurdle for me.

    What would be the best Linux „Distro“ (I guess that‘s how it is called) to start with? I would prefer if I would not have to deal with command line stuff… 😉

  • Microsoft: BUT WE’RE THE MOST ECO CONSCIOUS COMPANY WE KNOW!!!

    You can’t say they’re not. The even have a Chief Sustainability Officer! /s

  • Switch to Linux, today. It's always been the better option, but for the last decade it's been the easier option as well. Installing Linux is a walk in the park whereas windows is a Hilarious clown show from hell with no end.

    That reminds me that now in the office we're dealing with windows machines where the network card just stops working, drivers are suddenly gone. Don't ask, it's windows, it's Microsoft abd this is just considered normal. If a Linux machine has a bug it's "oh my god Linux sucks sooo hard, it's impossible to get it to work!" but this Microsoft bullshit just gets handwaved away with "well computers are complicated, let's just reinstall this"

    Yes, there is still a limited set of specialty hardware that may not have drivers available for Linux, but the vast majority of people can easily run Linux and have a much MUCH better experience than windows, and that is ignoring the spyware, the adware, the ads, the plain security nightmare of having a windows machine....

    Switch to Linux, it's easy, it's beautiful, it's fun. Come to Linux, come to the dark side, we have cookies

    Installing Linux is a walk in the park whereas windows is a Hilarious clown show from hell with no end.

    As a server maybe. Switching everything on my desktop to Linux has been a constant fight against all kinds of problems and there's several things I haven't been able to get working at all. Microsoft's constant enshittification is closing the gap and it's currently a tossup between which one I'm going to land on but that's not Linux improving so much as Windows getting worse.

  • OK, thanks for the information, that sounds really interesting. I was playing Doom Eternal and Metro Exodus some time ago, but I made a bread and didn‘t pick it up anymore due to a lack of time. Many years ago I was also trying a bit of Linux on a Netbook (small notebook). By then it was really a different world than Windows.

    However, I am not sure how easy that is to manage with getting the right Linux distribution, then Wine, then Proton and then getting all tricks and tweaks right… - I am not a tech expert, so leaving a system that works out of the box is a bit of a hurdle for me.

    What would be the best Linux „Distro“ (I guess that‘s how it is called) to start with? I would prefer if I would not have to deal with command line stuff… 😉

    People keep saying Bazzite now for distro. But as a relatively new linux user (since last summer) I've managed to make things work with Linux Mint, arch and Fedora no hassle.

    Heroic launcher (GOG, Epic) or Steam will handle proton&wine for you. Just need to check a check-box in the game's config on whether you want to run native or proton.

  • Quick glance on my installed programs, and I count 7 apps I heavily use in windows 11 with no linux version, nor a clear equivalent that could replace them without extensive hacks that may or may not work and be a total waste of my time.

    Also a funny thing: I installed Debian with KDE and then GNOME last year on another PC, and guess what? KDE & GNOME came bloated with a bunch of apps, games, office suite, code editor and other shit.

    I thought the whole shtick of Linux/FOSS was that it didn't make any default choices for you. That's what I always read here when people cry about windows bloat.

    The same cleanup & customization did for windows 11 I had to do to Debian KDE and then GNOME.

    Point is: it's not that easy and being and insufferable jerk about it its not gonna solve it. Let people use what they want.

    Quick glance on my installed programs, and I count 7 apps I heavily use in windows 11 with no linux version, nor a clear equivalent that could replace them without extensive hacks that may or may not work and be a total waste of my time.

    if you tell us the names, maybe someone can help

    Also a funny thing: I installed Debian with KDE and then GNOME last year on another PC, and guess what? KDE & GNOME came bloated with a bunch of apps, games, office suite, code editor and other shit.

    that's the decision of the distribution, not KDE/Gnome. often it is configurable in the installer, even in debian to some level.

    The same cleanup & customization did for windows 11 I had to do to Debian KDE and then GNOME.

    to be fair if uninstalling unneeded programs is the only thing you do on 11, you're leaving in lots of things.

    Let people use what they want.

    I agree that insufferable jerks are insufferable jerks, but I don't think most people want to use windows 11, but that's what they can use, for one reason or another, some of which have a solution, some of which not yet. if anything, I would bet money most would rather just stay on 10.

  • I had an ipod that was filled with "pirated" (ripped) audio files, never owned a single itunes purchased song, and have used Windows on many computers that didnt have OneDrive setup and never experienced either of those.

    Do you have some sources for those cause I'd be interested to read about them.

    I currently have a modded iPod mini with 128Gb of music, around 1Gb of which was bought from iTunes.

    It works perfectly fine. Remarkably so, in fact. Damn things 20 years old, I can plug it into my M2 Macbook and sync music like always.

  • This rings a little hollow to me. Most of the people I know that understand Linux can quickly summarize why they might not use it as their daily driver (eg staying on macOS for graphics/video or staying on Windows for desktop Word/Excel). If you can’t summarize that quickly, it really makes me wonder if you really understand it. I’m not trying to No True Scotsman my way around it; I really don’t understand.

    Personally, I'm sticking with macOS as my primary OS until the point that Asahi solves DP alt mode and I can run two displays from it.

    My 2014 Mac mini runs Mint, so I'm more than happy to dive in to Linux as my main.

  • You can’t say they’re not. The even have a Chief Sustainability Officer! /s

    OK I’m sold…they are officially the most eco efficient and conscious company in the WORLD and bill gates is not about to garrote me agent 47 sty-

  • Switch to Linux, today. It's always been the better option, but for the last decade it's been the easier option as well. Installing Linux is a walk in the park whereas windows is a Hilarious clown show from hell with no end.

    That reminds me that now in the office we're dealing with windows machines where the network card just stops working, drivers are suddenly gone. Don't ask, it's windows, it's Microsoft abd this is just considered normal. If a Linux machine has a bug it's "oh my god Linux sucks sooo hard, it's impossible to get it to work!" but this Microsoft bullshit just gets handwaved away with "well computers are complicated, let's just reinstall this"

    Yes, there is still a limited set of specialty hardware that may not have drivers available for Linux, but the vast majority of people can easily run Linux and have a much MUCH better experience than windows, and that is ignoring the spyware, the adware, the ads, the plain security nightmare of having a windows machine....

    Switch to Linux, it's easy, it's beautiful, it's fun. Come to Linux, come to the dark side, we have cookies

    But what if we already use Linux? Can we still have some cookies? Or is this new users only?

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    Fucking Christ, you have choices people. If windows won’t meet your needs anymore, USE SOMETHING ELSE! Why do these people pretend there are no alternatives to windows?!

  • People keep saying Bazzite now for distro. But as a relatively new linux user (since last summer) I've managed to make things work with Linux Mint, arch and Fedora no hassle.

    Heroic launcher (GOG, Epic) or Steam will handle proton&wine for you. Just need to check a check-box in the game's config on whether you want to run native or proton.

    Which Distro would you recommend for a relative newcomer? My PC was once “high-end” but is already a bit older (2016/17?). Still quite powerful, I guess.

  • It's better now but twenty years ago some Linux distros were so insecure out of the box that you could be fully owned if you logged into the wrong network.

    Even still, I don't see most distros leverage the security capabilities that running Linux enables. Linux runs the server side of the internet, being a niche os isn't the security silver bullet it once was.

    Pretty sure this guy didn’t use Linux twenty years ago. Outside of very basic computing, Linux wasn’t very useful.

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    I had a Windows 10 laptop that has a CPU not supported by Windows 11. It’s not e-waste, though. It just runs Ubuntu now.

  • Fucking Christ, you have choices people. If windows won’t meet your needs anymore, USE SOMETHING ELSE! Why do these people pretend there are no alternatives to windows?!

    There are no alternatives to Windows. You will join us. Embrace ☀️. Extend 🌈.Ȩ̷͙͙̺̰̦͊̏͜x̷̱̹̃t̶̡͉̍̋̌̿͗̈́͘í̴̡̼̱̫͚̺͙̉ň̶̛̮͠ģ̴̛̹̮͎̏̓u̷̢̢̜͊̆̈̉͐̑i̸̛̪͔̤̰͚̾͌̈̍͜ͅs̶̳̜͎͓͚̣̼̖͌̇̈́͊̌͋h̷͉̹̄͐̋̐͛🌚.

  • Which Distro would you recommend for a relative newcomer? My PC was once “high-end” but is already a bit older (2016/17?). Still quite powerful, I guess.

    Linux Mint is very user friendly. It’s basically the windows UI, including all the familiar keyboard shortcuts, and the software store is very robust. 99.9% of things are just point and click. Using Steam and a browser is the exact same experience as on windows, only a bit snappier.

  • Pretty sure this guy didn’t use Linux twenty years ago. Outside of very basic computing, Linux wasn’t very useful.

    Pretty sure this guy built a 5 user machine with 5 monitors, keyboards, audio, all on a single 2gig Celeron machine. Built the software for all of it in 3 months. That is not 1 user on a desktop but 5 at the same time. 1 user was even back then better, bect I remember all the Regex.exe posts that is sooooo much easier than typing a command somewhere

    That was 17 years ago.