Technology

I got a cheap mini pc. It had W11 on it which I promptly broke (I think it was when it insisted on me putting in a PIN but I closed the window). It also ran at 100% for no reason trying to do updates, but then refused to do any updates.

So I put the latest Ubuntu Linux on it. Seems OK, but I can't get anything to recognise the video codex stuff in the N150 CPU. It seems to know it's there, but Firefox and MPV won't use it...

GF recently wanted to buy Ms office because she had a nice looking CV template for it that would not work well in LibreOffice. So I spent some hours making a good one without Ms crap, just so they would not get anymore money.

It's not all quite as rosy.

Yes, Linux is much more capable now than it was 10 years ago and it's much more capable of being used as a main system. I myself have been using Linux as my main system for a few years now.

But it's also a fact that a lot of stuff might not work (even if it works for someone else) and that some things are still more difficult than they should be.

For example, on my laptop cannot wake from sleep since kernel 6.11. I have manually sourced a 6.10 from an older version of my distro and keep holding it back, so that I can use my laptop as a laptop. For someone without technical skill, this would mean that their laptop just can't sleep any more. Hibernate also doesn't work.

Another example is that LibreOffice still makes a lot of formatting mistakes when it has to open word documents. And sure, everyone could just switch to odf, but it's not quite as easy to make everyone else switch to odf. It makes it really hard to use LibreOffice in any kind of professional environment. Wouldn't want to make a powerpoint presentation that then looks like shit when it's played on a different PC.

Lastly, Nvidia sucks, but it's also close to the only option for laptops with dGPUs. When I look for laptops with dGPUs available in my area on a price comparison platform, I find 760 laptops with Nvidia GPUs and only 3 with AMD, all of which are priced at least €500 more than comparable Nvidia devices. So if you want to go for a gaming laptop, Nvidia is pretty much the only option, and under Linux it really sucks. Steam games generally work ok for me, but trying to use Heroic Launcher to play anything from my gigantic library of free Epic/Amazon/GoG games, about 10% of the games I tried actually work. And even with those that work, my laptop sometimes just decides that a slide show with 3 FPS is good enough. That stays even after reboots and resets, and after a few days it returns to normal. Only to go back to slideshow mode a few days later.

If you just use your laptop to run a browser, I can recommend Linux 100%.

If you want to do anything else and don't have any technical skills and/or don't want to spend hours fixing things that should just work, I can't fully recommend it.

Somehow, windows 11 is even MORE spyware than 10!

OnlyOffice is way better than LibreOffice.

If you find yourself not wanting to switch, there are third party options for patching. I'm going to try zero patch, but I have no experience with them to date.

Also 0patch, which will continue to provide security patches for Windows 10 indefinitely.

I don't understand how can critical buisness machines which work perfectly fine be switched to windows 11?

We have a machine at work which is beefy and works as a server and backups for many many years on windows 10. Why the hell should I upgrade my buisness critical system ?? Why would I take my risk breaking stuff. I am sure there are millions of critical systems running gon windows 10 which should not be distribed at any means, what would Microsoft do about them.

What is the highest spec pc I am likely to find for sale when people realise it cant go to windows 11?