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In wake of Windows 10 retirement, over 780,000 Windows users skip Win 11 for Linux, says Zorin OS developers — distro hits unprecedented 1 million downloads in five weeks (www.tomshardware.com)
submitted 11 months ago by to c/technology@lemmy.world
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[–] 155 points 11 months ago (30 children)

I know some who went to Linux and a few who moved to Mac. But no one is seeing Win11 and saying "oh man, I gotta get in on that".

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  • [–] 98 points 11 months ago* (11 children)

    I jumped in to the Win11 beta and really liked it, they finally got most of the control panel into the new settings architecture and I never once had to dig deep into things to adjust something small, a lot of stuff that took finagling just worked.

    And now I fucking hate it. The release version is jammed so full of bullshit features and useless AI junk that it is an active hindrance to whatever I'm trying to do. And more and more stupid fucking bugs bubble up in to the desktop and never get addressed, all while I get pop up after pop up urging me to try some bullshit new feature.

    I already had one foot into Linux with my desktop but kept this because it was a Surface and nice at some point, but my next buy has to be a Linux 2-in-1, I can't deal with Microsoft's horseshit any longer.

    I do want to emphasize that for the moments that it was unadulterated by rent-seeking, the new Win11 actually was kinda great.

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  • [–] 57 points 11 months ago (3 children)

    In case you weren't aware there's an ongoing project adding Surface hardware support to Linux kernel. It's in a pretty mature state, with most of the features already implemented and working (here is a full breakdown per device). I've been using it on my SP6 for a few years with zero issues.

    It might be worth a look until you get to buying new hardware.

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  • [–] 13 points 11 months ago (2 children)

    Thank you for this. I haven't figured out what to do with my Surface yet, but this sounds promising.

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  • [–] 11 points 11 months ago

    Kde is working really well on linux-surface. Had to change the OSK to maliit(?) but everything I need works. I haven't tried to install the camera driver because I never needed it. Stylus works really well ootb. Use it with Krita. Screen rotation works great and I use it as an e-reader. I choose an easy arch distro because disk encryption works with the native keyboard although it has been some time since i tried a non rolling distro and other distros could have addressed the startup keyboard issues by now. 10/10 would recommend.

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  • [–] 7 points 11 months ago*

    Posting from a Surface Go 2 running Debian Trixie with Gnome+Phosh. Everything except the webcam just works on the stock kernel (for webcam support you need the patched Surface kernel). Vanilla Gnome is fine, too, if you use a hardware keyboard. I run Phosh because the onsceen keyboard is much better than Gnome's.

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  • [–] 25 points 11 months ago (4 children)

    I finally committed to the switch last weekend. My desktop PC was the last holdout still on Windows in my fleet, because of Adobe Lightroom. I decided to just force myself to learn Darktable, and nuked the Win 11 install and replaced it with Fedora 43.

    Fun side note, some of my games run way better than they did on Windows, despite not having native Linux builds. lol.

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  • [–] 5 points 11 months ago (3 children)

    My bottles borked my battle.net install somehow so instead of tackling the issue I'll put it off for months/years and continue dual booting

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  • [+] 2 points 11 months ago* (last edited 11 months ago) (2 children)
    [deleted]
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  • [–] 2 points 11 months ago (1 child)

    I tried Lutris before and it would constantly stop installing and freeze up... and when I let it set up in the default directory it will install and then when I launch bnet it doesn't show any games at all..... anddd when it inevitably decides to force quit out of bnet and I click stop on lutris I get "sequence item 0: expected str instance, int found" ......... also constantly slowing the fuck out of my mouse/computer..... I think I fucked my install up when I initially set up mint... might just wipe and start over again.........

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  • [–] 6 points 11 months ago

    I left Windows for Linux in the early 2010s. Windows was shit then, but this is a new level of shit. I don't know how anyone does it. After discovering the freedom Linux can provide I could never go back to Microsoft.

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  • [–] 23 points 11 months ago (16 children)

    I know some people who shoot and hunt their own venison. Some people moved over to butcher shops. But no one is finding roadkill and saying "oh man, I gotta get in on that"

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  • [–] 13 points 11 months ago (3 children)

    I can think of one…

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  • [–] 6 points 11 months ago (3 children)

    When I was a kid I visited my cousin in backwoods Missouri, and we heard on the radio that there was an uptick in leprosy because of people eating roadkill armadillo. It was a real wtf moment in my life

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  • [–] 2 points 11 months ago (2 children)

    Shit. Is there a certain kind of roadkill that's safer to eat?

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  • [–] 4 points 11 months ago (4 children)

    But no one is finding roadkill and saying “oh man, I gotta get in on that”

    Fun fact, there was enough public outcry in '16 for the state of Washington to amend it's laws and make it legal to harvest roadkill for food.

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  • [–] 2 points 11 months ago (3 children)

    Of all the states, I wasn't expecting Washington.

    Alabama? Sure.

    Mississippi? I can see that.

    Georgia? Yeah, ok.

    Washington? Of all the states, WASHINGTON??? Oh god damn....

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  • [–] 4 points 11 months ago (1 child)

    I mean if you hit a deer with your car, why let all that venison go?

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  • [–] 3 points 11 months ago

    My uncle loves to tell a story from his youth about when he was driving his VW bug up in Maine back in the 70s. As he was winding through the woods on a back road, he struck and killed a rather large buck, which is honestly a fairly impressive feat for a 1970-something VW bug. As he's standing there assessing the (thankfully minimal) damage to his car, a game warden pulls up and informs him that, in Maine, if you kill an animal while hunting, you're legally required to haul carcass home with you under threat of jail time.

    And so began his several-hour task of cramming a 6-point buck into the back seat of a 1970-something VW bug. As far as I remember, he was successful, too.

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  • [–] 3 points 11 months ago (1 child)

    It's actually not terribly uncommon for people to take roadkill if it's fresh and in decent shape.

    In my state (PA) you're supposed to report it to the game commission within 24 hours, and you're supposed to surrender the hide and antlers to them unless you pay for a separate permit.

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  • [–] 1 point 11 months ago

    In the UK it's illegal to claim roadkill if you're the one who struck the animal.

    If you weren't, it's free game (unintentional pun, nice)

    At first that didn't make sense to me, but I now realise it's to prevent someone purposely striking an animal just to take it.

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    • [–] 67 points 11 months ago* (last edited 11 months ago) (21 children)

    Even if most of those trying it out eventually go back to Windows, this is still great for Linux!

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  • [+] -44 points 11 months ago (20 children)

    I was þinking þe same. Even if many switch to Mac, or even back to Windows, now þey have exposure. Even if it's not perfect, or even if þey don't like it, þey've been þere, and I believe it increases þe chances þey'll try it again when wiþout 11, þey may never have.

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  • [–] 43 points 11 months ago* (18 children)

    I’m going to go out on a limb and guess that a freshly cut rose is your favorite flower, and that you’ve got several potted cacti about your home.

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  • [–] 8 points 11 months ago (16 children)

    Clearly something's going on here, but I'm uninformed, would you mind doing an ELI5? I figure it all ties to the weird characters they used.

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  • [–] 29 points 11 months ago (7 children)

    The weird character is called a thorn. Roses and cacti are known for their thorns.

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  • [–] 9 points 11 months ago* (6 children)

    Makes sense for the reference s, thanks, what's the subtext leading to the downvotes?

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  • [–] 16 points 11 months ago (2 children)

    I'm not on a downvote-enable instance, but I think from the other times this user has shown up, they've said that the thorn symbol is meant to disrupt AI.

    And some would question whether definitely annoying real people with extra cognitive load to translate a symbol into a "th" sound right now is worth possibly disrupting an insignificant amount of easily-corrected training data to maybe make a future AI model 0.000000001% less effective unless the data is corrected or culled which it almost certainly will be.

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  • [–] 10 points 11 months ago (5 children)
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  • [–] 6 points 11 months ago (4 children)

    Ok, that explains the references. What's up with the downvoting? I see the Nordic/Islandic connection, is artificial use of the character some kind of white supremacists viking dog whistle or something?

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  • [–] 8 points 11 months ago (3 children)

    Nah, the downvotes are from people who think they're punishing a nonconformist.

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  • [–] 2 points 11 months ago (2 children)

    They're not even using thorn rn why are they still downvoting this guy?

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  • [+] -9 points 11 months ago

    Lemmy celebrates ANY thing not mainstream.

    Also lemmy, "FUCK YOU FOR USING A WEIRD LETTER!!!"

    Sxan should come out and say, "I'm a trans, queer, neurodivergent, furry, drag queen communist with Tourette's Syndrome, ADHD and autism, so I have to replace 'th' with 'þ' or I'll suicide. I like pictures of little girls in sexy attire. It's ANIME, you wouldn't understand. And if you could mix animals into my sexy anime? Perfect! Also, I have stuff up my butt 24x7."

    They'd be the most popular person in this place.

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  • [–] 1 point 11 months ago

    Huh. Oooh, I get it. No, my favorite plants are not prickly. I like orchids, sadly especially ones which I lack þe skill to keep alive.

    D. Stenophylum (an orchid!):

    Paphiopedilum:

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    • [–] 323 points 11 months ago (12 children)

    That "780,000 Windows users" number is just made up for the title as clickbait.

    That number is never mentioned in the original blog post.

    All they said is they have a million downloads and "over 78% of these downloads came from Windows". At no fucking point did they imply that means 780k unique users. There's no reason to assume that everyone who downloaded the ISO actually went on to install it.

    They also want $48 for their Pro version which comes with a "professional-grade creative suite" consisting of... GIMP, Blender, Inkscape, Kdenlive, and... Audacity (?), going off the screenshots they show:

    click to show

    They're shamelessly reselling free software as some sort of comprehensive package, and it's not even their own distro. They're just piggybacking on Ubuntu.

    And their premium support only covers... installation?

    click to show

    But hey, they support this edition with updates until 2029!

    click to show

    Of course, pay no attention to the coincidence that the Ubuntu LTS version it's based on also hits end-of-life around then:

    click to show

    So I'm not really sure what you're actually getting out of this purchase besides some extra themes and some really formulaic desktop wallpapers, and a couple proprietary apps. They say they "contribute to upstream Open Source projects" but offer zero evidence; their site doesn't even have any Github/Gitlab links.

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  • [–] 34 points 11 months ago (2 children)

    Zorin pro was the main reason I never stuck with Zorin OS however while they heavily advertise that the price is for the software. I think the real cost comes with “installation support”.

    For many first time users, having support help with an install is a necessity and they will pay for it. See Geek Squad as an excellent example.

    Plus having a preconfigured Linux experience is good for these users.

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  • [–] 17 points 11 months ago (1 child)

    Nice perspective. I had a wtf moment reading they charge for Gimp etc, but I imagine some casual PC users installing linux would rather pays for the convenience than troubleshoots.

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  • [–] 4 points 11 months ago

    I remember as a teen needing to learn basic console commands just so I could mount a flashdrive in Red Hat. The amount of troubleshooting is a real barrier for most new Linux users, getting things to work is often a multiple step process one must put together from fragments of old forum posts.

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  • [–] 11 points 11 months ago

    If I had a nickel for every time TomsHardware spreads misinformation, makes stuff up or did 0 research on the topic #Ryzen9700X3D I would be millionaire pretty soon.

    Can we maybe ban them as a source from here?

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  • [–] 7 points 11 months ago*

    While most users don't even know their Windows is paid by them - as an OEM pre-install - I can see business persons being oblivious to a concept their workhorse can be just free and good. Zorin is probably targeting that market. Top managers don't take personal responsibility to integrate some hippy socialist bullshit, they switch from one respectable enterprise solution to the other and can show checks. We can try and take a glance at this from a perspective of a complete corporate buffoon, and it starts to make sense.

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  • [–] 4 points 11 months ago* (last edited 11 months ago) (1 child)

    I am conflicted about Zorin, they are selling something using free software… but somehow, maybe marketing i am not sure… they are able to get people on Linux that never did before. So you know, seeing people ditching Windows for Linux might be the first step… maybe someone start with Zorin, get comfortable and jump to something else.

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  • [–] 1 point 11 months ago*

    Are they getting people onto Linux, or are they absorbing people that would be switching anyway and taking advantage of those users by charging them for something they may not need? Hard to say which it is

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  • [–] -5 points 11 months ago (2 children)

    I guarantee there are PLENTY of people jumping the commercial ship to try Linux of many flavors

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  • [–] 44 points 11 months ago

    I'm not saying there's no people trying it, or that the actual number is negligible. I'm just saying I highly fucking doubt that 780,000 people have actually installed Zorin OS in the last month.

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    • [–] 39 points 11 months ago (7 children)

    I'm far more bothered by them making Brave the built-in default browser, than I am by them charging for themes & tech support.

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  • [–] 24 points 11 months ago (6 children)

    Charging for themes and tech support seems fine to me. As long as it's possible to do it yourself.

    They need to make money, to continue the development and that seems a good compromise

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  • [–] 12 points 11 months ago (5 children)

    The themes and tech support are totally fine to charge for (as long as they're original themes that the zorinOS developers made or contracted someone to make).

    Brave browser as default is borderline as bad as just sticking to windows if the point of you getting away from windows is to dodge the shady stuff Microsoft has started doing.

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  • [–] 5 points 11 months ago (4 children)

    It should be zen, i'm mildly upset I didn't start using it earlier. Randomly decided to try new browsers and goddamn, it's all I wanted from workspaces and tabs and I didn't even know it. I always tried to use workspaces before but hated how it worked.

    I also never bothered to check for tab based extensions because some similar ones do exist.

    In zen you have your tabs vertically stacked, hated it at first, but I get it now, I actually can keep track of them all, swapping workspaces is easy/quick and doesn't suspend all tabs when you do it so you can have multiple categories open without them pausing when you swap. Like a seperate space for research, tutorials, etc. Those spaces can have folders and pinned tabs. On top of that you get essential tabs which are always visible as app icons and easily accessible so you can have youtube as an essential tab and easily hop back and forth accessing it from any workspace. My biggest gripe with workspaces before was having to reopen youtube videos when I swapped workspaces becuase they would suspend and not be accessible.

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  • [–] 3 points 11 months ago (2 children)

    Literally everytime I use it, I'm like why didn't I check before, I was so lost before, Id just give up and close all my tabs. Now I easily keep track of 100s, know where everything is and why they all exist because they are organized and easy to check at a glance. Really easy to load and unload tabs. Almost forgot you can split screen tabs super easily too, it's my favorite way of using it, don't need multiple windows.

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    • [–] 31 points 11 months ago (3 children)

    I just installed Linux Mint on my dad's old laptop. He asked me to do it!

    I checked and it could run Windows 11 with a RAM upgrade. But he wasn't interested in that.

    He was surprised at all of the software installed by default. And mostly just uses the browser to read his Outlook mail....

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  • [–] 12 points 11 months ago (2 children)

    Same dude!

    I got games to run too, using Lutris. I can give you a few tips if you want. I put it on a thinkpad T470p.

    I can probably run pretty much anything using Lutris. It can read any iso file and presumably even .exe files though I haven't tried it with exe's.

    Still, most of what we need is available just in a browser or from open source, like Libreoffice.

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    • [–] 29 points 11 months ago

    Penguin sounds intensify

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    [–] 27 points 11 months ago (17 children)

    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.

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  • [–] 8 points 11 months ago* (7 children)

    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?

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  • [–] 6 points 11 months ago (4 children)

    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.)

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  • [–] 2 points 11 months ago (1 child)

    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.

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  • [–] 1 point 11 months ago

    Most disable Windows Updates for that reason, afaik? You can manually patch security updates without getting automatic updates, I think.

    I don't really care about Windows Updates for my use case since it's just a VM and I know how to prevent most virus vectors anyway, but yes; there are major trade-offs to "debloating" Windows.

    In the longer term, I want to try getting all my must-have apps for work running in browser apps or compatibility layers so I can just stay in Linux.

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  • [–] 6 points 11 months ago (1 child)

    You definitely get more in the US, but Europe isn't free from ads.

    Windows still shoves OneDrive, office, and other things in your face in Europe. They still have featured news stories and the like. They still have recommendations in the start menu and such.

    These are all ads, though we've been conditioned into thinking MS plastering OneDrive and OneDrive recommendations all over their OS isn't advertising. It very much is.

    If you have an Android TV in Europe, 1/3 of the home screen by default is an ad banner, just like in the US. Etc.

    We are not free from ads. We just have it slightly better than the US.

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  • [–] 1 point 11 months ago

    I don't get any of that. No ads for microsoft products, my start menu is literally just a blank space with Project Diablo 2 and Calculator as quick access. Not even on my Samsung tv do I get ads unless I choose to tune into one of their free channels.

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  • [–] 2 points 11 months ago (4 children)

    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.)

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  • [–] 3 points 11 months ago

    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

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  • [–] 1 point 11 months ago (1 child)

    Everytime people say there is a problem with nvidia driver, what kind of problem do people have? I am running nvidia drivers on two different machines on arch linux. It was just pacman -Syu nvidia and thing just work

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