New on LowEndTalk? Please Register and read our Community Rules.
All new Registrations are manually reviewed and approved, so a short delay after registration may occur before your account becomes active.
All new Registrations are manually reviewed and approved, so a short delay after registration may occur before your account becomes active.
Comments
Anyone tried AtlasOS (stripped/barebones Windows 10) for gaming?
I use Alpine Linux on my home pc, laptop, even my phone (postmarketOS)

Also I have local-made chromebook (Zyrex M432) which I get for free as my laptop when going outside beside work.
Bill gates still in top 10 richest person in the world for over a decade while doing nothing. Only revenue from Microsoft make him that much money. Then how can be all windows is cracked?. There is still planty of people paying them and who dont they cracked it or use cracked one.
I meant that Microsoft cracked windows.
I was suggesting that the average Joe PC user...
This guy... consider a cracked version version of windows will contain spyware.
But Microsoft added spyware to windows on purpose. So all versions of Windows are cracked.
Sorry it was a bit of a subtle joke.
For home desktop use Windows still the king, Linux rule in the server sector and smartphones, tablets -Linux-Android
You know that Microsoft make other things than Windows, right?
Their biggest source of income for the last decade or so have been the cloud.
Too bright.
Maybe my LET Dark Theme Config will suit the look of your desktop better
Ubunto Budgie sold me.
">
I'm never going back !
I have to disagree that it's the king, unless you mean solely because of it's market share.
On arch, my laptop battery lasts longer, my cpu runs cooler. It looks better imho, more customizable. runs smoother, and no spyware. I have all the apps i want, including fusion360 (admittedly it's slower for this software), but for everything else linux is just faster than windows.
Dunno LET have dark mode switch until now, I just let website decide dark mode automatically for most time. Tried it, and color have exactly what my eyes need.
. Thanks!
macOS feels like home - but if they keep trying to nerf it into some weird iOS desktop version I'll move to linux full time.
I run Pop!_OS on my old MacBook Pro currently. Also like Linux Mint Cinnamon.
If anyone knows what the closest thing to iTerm2 is on Linux, lemme hear it.
Microsoft stopped caring for personal desktop machines a long time ago. It's been for at least 10 years now that you can call their support (even on Skype) and they'd activate it for you.
They realized that there is more money to make every year in MS Office, adv, etc... Also the more people familiar with it at home, more likely companies will pay for office workers.
Awesome recommendation. I've been slowly forcing everything over to Linux desktop environments and away from windows for a really long time now. This only sped up with the rollout of 11. I've dual booted for awhile but getting to the point where I almost never boot back into win10 for weeks/months at a time and if there is some game/whatever (rarely time for that these days) if it can't be run in Linux I just write it off completely. Might as well pull what I need and dump it.
Was already comfortable with LM running on Ubuntu, but I'd much prefer Debian and had completely missed that this existed.
You are aware, I presume, that spyware can be mitigated, either by disabling those modules or by filtering out the calls home with a firewall.
There are numerous free and open source tools out there to regain control over your windows installation and, at the last resort, you could firewall it at router level.
No perfect tool exists and Microsoft will always find ways to spy on you, but by using a minimalist windows install with a smaller footprint and most trackers disabled, a privacy tool and some firewalling, near-perfect privacy could be achieved.
Anyway, if you do have to go fully incognito, then you can use a dedicated distro for that, a VM and done.
Its not just about a spyware but in my case i was getting BSOD after every few days of win10 installation. I contacted MS but they said you may have faulty hardware but my PC was good and win7 was working absolutely fine before switching to win10 (I did fresh install) on top of that suddenly login password stopped without any reason and i was completely locked out
. I wasted too much time in trouble shooting without any success. Then i decided to switch from win10 BS to linux. I choose Linux Mint cinnamon, UI was very similar to win7 didn't feel much difference.
Since that day there are literally zero issues. I needed few windows softwares so i purchased crossover and everything is going very smooth.
Yeah, arcane failing is very annoying. IRQL not less or equal and other gibberish like that but, TBH, in most cases there is a hardware issue, just that it is much harder (at least for me) to diagnose on windows than on linux.
Yeah, I missed the LM Debian Edition for a long time too, and was pleasantly surprised at how good it is... actually more than pleasantly surprised. I think you'll enjoy using LMDE too. When you get a chance, make sure to donate to the LM team, they'll put it to good use. I'm hoping they promote LMDE more TBH, I wouldn't mind if they jettison Ubuntu entirely and just focus on the Debian Edition.
BTW, be advised with LMDE that two of the biggest differences between LM and LMDE (besides the fundamental difference of Ubuntu vs Debian repositories!) is that the Debian Edition doesn't have the "Additional and proprietary driver AKA Driver Manager app" there yet -- that's NOT a problem except for newbies, and hence probably one of the reasons why they haven't promoted LMDE as much yet. And also, a minor difference with the LM Update Manager, which on LMDE does not yet have kernel removal, for example. So you have to manually remove old kernels. Not a big deal either. There are a few other very minor things, but nothing worth thinking about.
But bottom line 99.9% feature parity IMO, and there are some users of the Debian Edition that even think it's MORE stable than regular LM. I don't know if that's true, but I don't think my LMDE machines have ever crashed, so they might be right.
Anyway, enjoy it. It's a hidden gem out there.
And to those folks who think that Linux Mint or Linux Mint Debian Edition are just for beginners, think again. LM and LMDE are actually for people who want to get shit done instead of tinker around all the time. Turns out that's good for beginners too.
I always keep old kernels just in case. They don't ask for food.
I've mainly been using Linux for many years. Since I play almost no games, I don't miss anything. For use as a general desktop I can recommend all Ubuntu flavors, Debian but also Arch-Linux based distros. It's always a question of preconfiguration and which packages are preinstalled. I'd say that's purely a matter of taste and ultimately a question of individual requirements.
Distros that I've used with satisfaction and for a long time: Ubuntu MATE/Budgie, Bunsenlabs/Crunchbang, ArchLabs and AntiX. Basically I'm a great friend of Openbox
In terms of gaming, Lakka spontaneously comes to my mind. But everyone has different demands, here too.
I just feel way more confident and productive when my desktops are on Windows. Every time I switch to desktop Linux, I feel like I'm learning how to use the basic necessities again. Practically everything, up to the muscle memory of the keyboard shortcuts. Sure, I can try to get used to it and use wine and whatnot for the Windows-specific apps, but... The years of experience made the decision.
Windows desktop, Linux servers, Android phone, iPad portable gaming.
Realistically I don't really care much about privacy as long as it's just telemetry.
Not to mention some of the big tech company also using windows anyway for their workers. Even my friend who works in google.
So I just use whatever best for my use case.
I get ya, after 3 months you'll feel the same way about Linux if you stick with it.
windows for PCs, ubuntu server for servers
Ubuntu Mate
I have two systems installed on my laptop: Windows 10 + Ubuntu 22
People old enough to remember windows 95/98 etc. know there was no choice back then. Windows was so unstable and hungry, that a carefully crafted desktop from linux was faster and more stable in less resources.
Today the same thing does not apply, my main laptops cost about 2k Eur so would do just fine in any kind of a modern OS and windows can run for weeks without a hitch.
back then, if windows 98 was crashing two times a day it was considered normal.
as a guy who was involved into unattended intallers scene of windows xp, i've seen tons of customizations in 2003-2005 that ported to linux later. I mean whole interfaces stolen from programs developed for windows (which patch uxtheme.dll or/and switch resources/icons/windows for almost literally everything (this is how windows Vista made their interface to be clear)).
There was a whole community who did different styling for windows XP.
Not many themes survived till these days (for sure, because it was 15-20 years ago).
But here just some primitive examples: https://www.deviantart.com/customizers-world/gallery/24615512/windows-xp-themes?set=24615512&offset=0
or
I can't find tools (exe installers) and forgot their names.
These tools did change CONCEPT of how working with Windows XP (i.e. no start at all, no dock panels, no sidebars, and tons of really crazy looking interface like in any fantasy/cyberpunk movies). And these themes developed in 2003-2005. I forgot names, and tried to lurking and search for them - but can't find...
It was not a windows theme, but installer which changes totally whole itnerface of windows XP. And you getting like new desktop enveriopment with awesome experience.
Thats why i said - conceptually linux did not changed at all since 2008, because i seen tons of crazy concepts, interfaces, etc. And this is sucks that no noticable progress in linux at all in terms to make it more user friendly.
More bling is not more user friendly.
I like my interface simple, thank you, XFCE does it and the associated tools are small and fast for any kind of VPS of 512 mb.
Drastically changing the interface makes people start looking for stuff instead of concentrating on productivity. It takes time to adapt, especially when you are tired.
I dual boot windows 11 and arch (kde plasma) (used to use ubuntu before)