Using windows 11 got me to switch my home PC to Linux at the start of the year so I have them to thank or that. My work PC just got updated from W10 to W11 and so far it’s so much worse than I was expecting, purely based on performance/buginess alone. I have no problems with most the features but it all feels one step forward two steps back when the whole system seems to be much less responsive
It’s insane how many stupid little problems there are with it. Especially on functionality that has existed for years/decades. It’s like they just change shit for the sake of changing it and then the changes aren’t tested properly to make sure they work. Absolutely ridiculous coming from such a massive company. It’s clear they give zero fucks about the user experience.
The coolest part is that if your internet goes down and windows can’t tell, your start menu will either never open or never have contents. It becomes completely useless. Fun!
I read a long time ago that delays had to be added to desktop UIs because users didn’t think the computer was “working” if it responded in a single video frame. Maybe the M$ LLM read that too and took it to heart.
I should have switched to linux a few years back as I was on windows due to having the same system as my wife to ease tech support duties. That changed and lazyness kept me static until windows 11 being forced forward that got me to change in the last year. Main regret was not getting my but in gear and doing it a few years sooner.
This is real petty, but on my work laptop, moving from W10 to W11 removed the popup calendar in the taskbar on secondary monitors and however many years later, it still messes me up every day.
TLDR; Overall, great. Had some growing pains but Linux feels faster/snappier than windows.
I’m a developer and a self host “enthusiast”, so I was already a little familiar with Linux, but I ended up hopping from OpenSUSE Tumbleweed, to Kubuntu, to Arch Linux (using KDE Plasma).
I had issues with Tumbleweeds package manager, and overall it felt clunky. They have stricter security than other distros and it caused some weirdness with Dolphin and some other utilities/packages.
Kubuntu was fine but then I came across an article that Valve was going to be directly collaborating with Arch, so I said screw it and jumped to Arch.
I absolutely love Arch, but it definitely has a learning curve. I found a gentleman on youtube (OldTechBloke) that walked through installing it and has a Gitlab repo with all of the commands to install. I took that and used it as a starting point and modified it over the past ~8-9 months to suit my needs (I’ve installed it on two other laptops now as well)
The biggest issues I’ve had have been related to Nvidia, and oddly enough, my Gigabyte motherboard. I had to enable several kernel parameters so “sleep” would work correctly. Luckily the arch wiki is incredibly detailed.
For a regular user, I would recommend Kubuntu or Linux Mint.
Edit: Also, I dual booted for a while but I’m at a point now where I haven’t been on Windows since like… February. PUBG and Tarkov are the only things keeping Windows around on my PC.
I recommend dual booting if that’s the only thing holding you up, as long as you keep Linux/windows on separate disks. I am in linux most of the time but I keep windows around just in case I need to use software that doesn’t work with wine/proton. It seems daunting but you’ll start learning how to use Linux as soon as you start using it as your daily driver.
If you are playing Tarkov on a daily basis then I could see that getting old quick
Using windows 11 got me to switch my home PC to Linux at the start of the year so I have them to thank or that. My work PC just got updated from W10 to W11 and so far it’s so much worse than I was expecting, purely based on performance/buginess alone. I have no problems with most the features but it all feels one step forward two steps back when the whole system seems to be much less responsive
It’s insane how many stupid little problems there are with it. Especially on functionality that has existed for years/decades. It’s like they just change shit for the sake of changing it and then the changes aren’t tested properly to make sure they work. Absolutely ridiculous coming from such a massive company. It’s clear they give zero fucks about the user experience.
What I don’t understand about Windows 11 is why they can’t seem to fix the weird delay that now exists across the entire UI.
Right click, weird delay, menu shows up.
Press the Start button, weird delay, menu shows up.
Open Explorer, weird delay, program shows up.
Enter text in the search field, weird delay, results show up.
Windows 10 didn’t have that delay.
It has to run your actions by the AI to be sure they are properly recorded and sent to Microsoft.
Isn’t it because they are using a react app for the win 11 UI?
The coolest part is that if your internet goes down and windows can’t tell, your start menu will either never open or never have contents. It becomes completely useless. Fun!
I read a long time ago that delays had to be added to desktop UIs because users didn’t think the computer was “working” if it responded in a single video frame. Maybe the M$ LLM read that too and took it to heart.
I should have switched to linux a few years back as I was on windows due to having the same system as my wife to ease tech support duties. That changed and lazyness kept me static until windows 11 being forced forward that got me to change in the last year. Main regret was not getting my but in gear and doing it a few years sooner.
I’m not on Win11, but I read somewhere that disabling the animation effects makes the system much more responsive.
This is real petty, but on my work laptop, moving from W10 to W11 removed the popup calendar in the taskbar on secondary monitors and however many years later, it still messes me up every day.
I put my work computer on Linux(NixOS) lol. When I do IT for users on Win 11 I’m constantly like "Why is this so slowwww? ".
Same. I got sick of Windows late last year and swapped to Linux in October/November.
What was your experience like?
TLDR; Overall, great. Had some growing pains but Linux feels faster/snappier than windows.
I’m a developer and a self host “enthusiast”, so I was already a little familiar with Linux, but I ended up hopping from OpenSUSE Tumbleweed, to Kubuntu, to Arch Linux (using KDE Plasma).
I had issues with Tumbleweeds package manager, and overall it felt clunky. They have stricter security than other distros and it caused some weirdness with Dolphin and some other utilities/packages.
Kubuntu was fine but then I came across an article that Valve was going to be directly collaborating with Arch, so I said screw it and jumped to Arch.
I absolutely love Arch, but it definitely has a learning curve. I found a gentleman on youtube (OldTechBloke) that walked through installing it and has a Gitlab repo with all of the commands to install. I took that and used it as a starting point and modified it over the past ~8-9 months to suit my needs (I’ve installed it on two other laptops now as well)
The biggest issues I’ve had have been related to Nvidia, and oddly enough, my Gigabyte motherboard. I had to enable several kernel parameters so “sleep” would work correctly. Luckily the arch wiki is incredibly detailed.
For a regular user, I would recommend Kubuntu or Linux Mint.
Edit: Also, I dual booted for a while but I’m at a point now where I haven’t been on Windows since like… February. PUBG and Tarkov are the only things keeping Windows around on my PC.
I’m just waiting for escape from tarkov to send the email to battle eye to enable Linux support and I’ll throw windows into the sun
I recommend dual booting if that’s the only thing holding you up, as long as you keep Linux/windows on separate disks. I am in linux most of the time but I keep windows around just in case I need to use software that doesn’t work with wine/proton. It seems daunting but you’ll start learning how to use Linux as soon as you start using it as your daily driver.
If you are playing Tarkov on a daily basis then I could see that getting old quick
I’m not unfamiliar with Linux and I do for the most part play daily