Windows 10's extended support ends in eight months, but users are still rejecting Windows 11, at least in Germany
4mon 18d ago by reddthat.com/u/throws_lemy in technology from www.windowslatest.com
Copilot is not the problem. If Copilot was just one more program (like Notepad or Paintbrush), I wouldn't have an issue with it. But Microsoft (and other companies) insist in putting it every-fucking-where. Like in Notepad? WHY?! So yeah, fuck Microsoft.
Like in Notepad? WHY?! So yeah, fuck Microsoft.
It's the equivalent of a drugs dealer that starts throwing their product in people's faces just to get more people hooked, but the product is so nasty almost everyone runs away screaming.
I know that isn't the point of your comment, but what issues do you have with Logitech hardware on Linux? I have just mice from them, but honestly an embarrassing amount. I just use Solaar and I can configure all I need? I also have always only used the onboard memory (so I can move them between computers), and don't really use macros though...
Windows is being re-written from the ground up to be 'agentic'. This means that Copilot is not going to be a feature of Windows, Windows is going to be a feature of Copilot.
Oh, and Copilot is going to be writing the code too. Microslop brags that 30% of their code is AI.
Hey hey, let's be honest here, bragged, it's been 9 months or so by now. Who knows how much of windows is vibecoded at this point, it might be as high as 50%.
Maybe the new stuff. The Windows NT core has 22 years' worth of code.
If it’s a matter of quantity over quality, LLMs are fantastic at that. I can totally see them bloating the codebase by letting loose a few LLMs and have them do whatever.
And following decent coding practices there shouldn't be a ton of code there (not saying a small amount, just little enough that AI would be able to compete in volume in this amount of time), just because less is so often more.
By the way microslop is doing emergency patch after emergency patch, vibe coding windows isn't the brag they thought it was.
Windows is being re-written from the ground up
I know they say that but you know there's still Windows 95 code still in there so I don't believe them at all. It's just smoke and mirrors for the shareholders.
Code? There is still win 95 UI in windows 10
They are just going to add another layer of abstraction.
Mac is going to shit too, which is so sad since that transition to ARM was a huge success. Their OS is ridiculously janky dogshit now. It’s not Microsoft level bad but it’s heading in the same direction.
I’m glad I finally started switching. The Linux stuff is more annoying in some ways but in predictable and therefore manageable ways. Mac=there is no war in bag sing sei. Windows=I have altered the deal, pray I do not alter it further.
What is wrong with Mac? I find macOS to be very clean and nice. I find it similar to KDE Plasma.
Okay, cmd+space and search.
Waits.
Fucking why?
Results pop up, if what I want is on top (never is) I click and just before I do, it changes the top result and opens something else.
Fucking why?
Liquid Glass just existing.
Fucking why?
Giant window corner radius
Fucking why?
Dynamic resorting lists are awful.
I dont use macs, havent for years, but its genuinely sad their ui has fallen to that low.
It’s also ridiculous that I’ve never got to this point in the first place. Spotlight was a solved problem. It was fast as hell. You type, it did. That was it no drama no waiting nothing it just did the thing and it did it fast and predictably then this last update comes out and they ruined spotlight.
My iphone just updated to the version with liquid glass and it's the worst thing I have every fucking seen. Wasted space on the edges, over exaggerated animations, moving buttons that are normal (contacts in the phone app) from 1 click to 2+ depending on what ever fucking mood is is in, the lag on all the buttons where things bop around right as you click as if it's loading ads on a page right before clicking a URL. I gave it a week and then sold my phone and go and android. Hurts breaking an entirely apple ecosystem household,but fuck liquid glass.
Apple‘s mobile UI definitely needed a visual overhaul. It’s time. But liquid glass was a step in the wrong direction. I’m firmly in the camp of neumorphism. This was horseshit. This does not solve a problem. It is not visually interesting. It is an obstacle in every goddamn fucking way. This says they had no engineers or designers in the room when they made this, it was all business majors and they fucking suck.
I’m firmly in the camp of neumorphism.
Why not good old 3d controls (or skeuomorphism) like in Winamp classic skin or Windows 3.11 or you get the general idea?
Why even combine fake 3d with flatness?
Also "electronic paper" (as in no 3d look, just lines and geometric figures and fillings, but not what's called flat design - element borders are lines, elements without borders don't exist) - fine. Think, if talking Apple, MacOS 8, but with less pretense.
Neumorphim mockups I’ve seen were visually interesting, clean and easy to read and understand, and flexible.
neumorphism
Yeah, because fuck people with bad eyesight amirite.
You can do that in a high contrast way. Elements are naturally high contrast in that design. You don’t need to see the shading around it. That’s not the important part.
Hmm I've never had these issues. I find Aerospace and cmd+space to be just as good as i3wm and dmenu on my previous Linux desktop. Any time some new update like liquid glass comes up I just don't enable it. It asks right after the update if you want it or not.
I'm a developer who uses both Linux and Mac (because of company machine) for work. Directly comparing them every day, I'm just much more happy with the Gnome (with popshell) experience than Mac all the time
I gave up with MacOS a couple of years ago (after nearly a lifetime of using them - my first 'own' Mac was a Lombard PowerBook G3 - lovely machine,) because it became increasingly apparent that Apple had stopped caring about the desktop operating system and were intent on turning it into a mobile phone with a keyboard and bigger screen.
Annoying desktop bugs - like constantly (and randomly) forgetting the resolution and position of second displays, not powering up external USB drives properly after sleep, and (as a developer) endlessly having to fight with "why is my build suddenly broken? oh, MacOS decided it doesn't trust the linker again" type problems just wore me out. Every time they released some pointless new UI fluff but ignored the fact that the Finder had been essentially unusable since Mac OS X (because why should you be using the Finder anyway, you should just trust that your files are stored in Magic Apple Cloud Land...) just reminded me they really didn't care about desktop users, they just want desktops as accessories to their mobile phones.
So, I cut the cord and finally switched to Linux on the desktop. Which is a shame, because they do make some really nice hardware...
(Although now that I'm actively trying to cut all US suppliers out of my life, it's actually been a blessing.)
I've said this before but if Apple really cared about their users then the iPad Pro would essentially just be a touchscreen laptop. It has the hardware to run a full-on operating system, but they keep it locked to iOS so they can sell you apps via the lockdown ecosystem.
Interesting. I've never had any of these issues. It might be because I use a tiling window manager (shoutout Aerospace) instead of Apple's own window manager. Also, I've never really done any development on the mac itself. I just SSH into my Arch Linux server. MacOS is just a frontend to my browser and terminal basically lol. I don't really care about my laptop's OS since it's just a frontend for my server. I just bought whichever laptop was sexiest.
It's been a while since I used Mac OS but I remember it was quite janky even around 2020.
And of course the whole liquid glass thing is just bonkersly stupid. Vista did it years ago and it was terrible back then because it just made the UI hard to see. I'm not interested in how clever it is.
There was a period when "ergonomics" became something users assumed to have been achieved for all eternity. Late 90s, early 00s, when developers generally made UIs following strict guidelines and looking natively with no designer bullshit.
Before that period (and before popularization of computers) "ergonomics" was something absolutely paramount, half of any mechanism a human uses. Another half would be the actual functionality, which differed between domain areas, but ergonomics didn't. And once a factory would start issuing those mechanisms with some kind of control panel, it wouldn't just release an update a few days earlier, no Star Trek transporters, no Harry Potter transfiguration, Carl!
So, somehow making ergonomic UIs is now irrelevant for profitability of making a product.
It's not really about AI. It's not really about ads. It's not really about telemetry. And it's not even really about something being slow.
It's just about ergonomics of old concepts implemented being by inertia not totally awful, but gradually worsening, and ergonomics of new concepts implemented being non-existent. That's all.
After spitting left and right for a few years even I would generally be fine with agentic AI or whatever else. If those things had ergonomic controls. They don't.
I’ve actually been really enjoying MacOS because of how they’ve sort of abandoned it. There’s no gimmicky bullshit in it. It’s just simple and old school and just works.
Maybe I’ll give it a fresh install when the next OS releases.
My office jumped ship at XP, it was that bad. We went to Linux because getting work done was actually more important.
So many things finally caught up, we did a lot of server client things with the Linux stack for field offices.
Now they call it the cloud. Which means it isn't your server.
XP started the enshittification and it continued year after year...
XP started it?
In the micorosft line? Yes. Windows ID started here, telemetry, pushing their software, licensing schemes that only put you in control if you had a corporate key and so on.
Fair point.
XP was Tellytubby NT 2000.
I've got till 2032 I'm good. Then I'll switch to Linux which will hopefully by then be better than windows at running windows games.
It already is actually. Proton driver's are great.
Mandatory reference to Protondb, which lists how well every game performs on Linux. 84 % of the top 100 games on Steam are rated as gold or platinum.
Yeah, it's very well done. Only issue is anything with kernel level anticheats, need windows. Fuck that, so many great games besides gtav and call of duty.
Some games with Kernel level anti-cheat still have linux support, though. It‘s always worth checking because some game devs actually care about Linux when you would expect the don‘t.
I don't play too many of those, so have t checked
So i lost my lol addiction, is that a negative?
Depends on what you're doing with your spare time. Do you feel a load was lifted off your shoulders or left on your face?
😦
And if your favorite games don't work on proton because it's something like apex or league that is a personal failing on your part
What?
People who don't switch to linux because they are addicted to bad games are bad people.
No
yeah
that doesn't make them bad people, just addicted people.
what makes some of them bad people is when they are actively campaigning against Linux to cope with their insecurities.
Windows LTSC?
Win10 IoT Enterprise LTSC 2021 is the good one.
Updates till 2036 right?
Ummm... Yes, Proton was already mentioned in this thread so I won't repeat it. But I'm curious which problems you have with games on Linux or did you just repeat what was true 5 (?) years ago.
Don't get me wrong: I tried gaming on linux when proton wasn't even remotely in the pipeline and it was horrible impossible. When I first heard about proton I tried again and ran into issues with the first game I tried (Europa Universalis 4, the new Paradox launcher was broken at the time) so I jumped ship again. Then I tried again in early 2025 and haven't looked back since then. There hasn't been a single game I tried that didn't work (although some games needed some tinkering but that's where protondb comes to rescue). There is one game I'd like to play (The Crew 2) that doesn't work because of it's anti cheat. But apart from that: Great experience!
You see, I get where you might be coming from but maybe don't way until 2032 and give it a try again?
I've been gaming exclusively on Linux for a few years now, and I can say Bethesda games, and specifically modding Bethesda games. That shit works a well as can be expected on windows, and if you keep the mod list light, can actually run better than vanilla.
I will say, the free Fallout 4 creation club content good enough as far as light modding goes, and runs extremely well.
Skyrim on the other hand, would honestly probably be fine if their creation club had half the mods that I want to play with.
Well Roller Coaster Tycoon 3 has weird distorted music. Apparently it’s due to .wma files and possible to convert them to MP3 (or use some weird fan patch of Proton) but that sounds like a lot of effort for something I was hoping would just work out of the box.
I'm sure there's a cli program to just do batch audio conversion, but in favor of simple and least amount of hassle, it wouldn't be that much work with fre:ac. You should be able to just open up the game's directory in your file browser by going to the game properties in Steam, clicking "Installed Files", and then clicking the browse button in the top right. Drag the wma files into an open window of fre:ac, make sure mp3 is selected for the output in your preferences and click convert. Or if you installed it in Wine, just browse to where you installed it, then continue the same once you have the wma files. Then just replace the wma files with your new mp3s, and you're done. Honestly, you'll probably spend more time waiting for your package manager to install fre:ac than you'll spend on everything else in this process. Not as easy as just running out of the box, but really not as bad as it might sound at first.
Not who you originally asked, but I am aware of an example where Windows is still better than Linux for a specific game: Guild Wars 2. Not because of anything directly in the game, but there is an insanely useful overlay program called BlishHUD that runs as a separate process. On Windows it just works; on Linux it is a pain to get it to mostly work.
But overall things have clearly shifted from gaming on Linux being a joke, to being possible but a huge pain, to being ok-ish but a bit clumsy, to finally being sometimes even better and on average equal. There will always be differences, and Windows currently still has the benefit of being the default. Maybe that too will change one day.
GW2 gamer here too, I've been switching over to Linux over the past few months and this is on one of my to-do lists(figure out HUD/overlay software for GW2).
Another hurdle I've had is getting mod support. For example, Tale of Two Wastelands. The standard installer is exe only and it runs via proton but it doesn't use all CPU threads to decompile the game assets. Takes over a hour to do. Luckily someone was able to build something that fixes this for Linux, takes 10 minutes or so depending on your CPU: https://github.com/SulfurNitride/TTW_Linux_Installer
So I'm sure something is also available for GW2
That's the biggest reason I've not switched. Gears of War is one of my favorite franchises, and games like that still need some time, it seems.
I made a conscious decision years ago to not buy any games that do not support Linux. This had the advantage of when I actually switched, all my recent games had full support ready to go. Plus it helps that I also don't support anti consumer corporations such as ea or ubi or epic. No Tux, No bux.
We will all be dead by then, give bazzite a try.
I just use Wine and feel good. Feel good!
Not every applications runs in Wine. For example I didn't get USB devices (not storage, connection to a special device) running in Wine. And I can imagine that old serial connections and so are even more tricky.
Not all applications run on Windows either:)
Wine has support serial and parallel ports. They work fine. In recent versions of wine you don't even have to set anything up. Just run ls -l ~/.wine/dosdevices/com* after running something in wine to see what the com port number is for your device. The ttyACM and ttyUSB ports are USB serial ports. The ttyS ports are hardware serial ports and they will probably show up even if your computer doesn't have any.
Whoa, I didn't know about it. Maybe I can run some legacy plc programming and industrial automation software using wine.
Huh, didn't know about that. I should try the application again.
I got some weird specialised hardware over USB working via WinBoat. Might be an option for some.
Good to know, thx.
Why would old serial connections be trickier in Wine? You would think they'd be easier since Wine started being developed when those were more prevalent.
Just a guess honestly
Old serial is probably easier due to it being simpler.
Something like Winboat would be more useful for edge cases like that.
First time I tried to use WINE I got extremely confused by it, and ended up with a program that still didn't function. Literally no idea if it was me or a program that fundamentally didn't work with Wine.
Yes, "wine /path/to/program.exe" command might be too confusing for some categories of users.
So good! So good! I got you!
I'm migrate my notebook to Linix Mint, perform way better than Windows 10.
I'm trying to figure out a way to transport my modlists from MO2 in Fallout New Vegas and Skyrim to run on Linux, once this is done, i goodbye windows forever on my personal devices
I just installed Linux Mint last weekend. Working great so far!
People aren't just rejecting it and staying on 10. They are actively downgrading (going back to windows 10) or leaving the windows ecosystem entirely for Linux. Someone actually went out of their way to tally up and explain all the shit MS broke over the course of the last year. It's a ridiculous number of things.
Microsoft removed my quick access links to my desktop folder today
why? I don't know. I guess they want to force me to use the OneDrive desktop folder. which I do use, for shit I want synced to OneDrive. but I also have a local desktop folder I use for temp files, and fuck you very much Microsoft left me fucking use my computer how I want to
side note, I had a little program that would export a file that a user had open to their desktop in a specific format. great program, super useful for the application we were running it in, it made a multi-step process of navigating menus into a single button click. I've been using it for the past few years at this company. cue my surprise when some new people inform me that the button doesn't work for them and so they haven't been using it - BECAUSE MICROSOFT TOOK AWAY THE LOCAL USER DESKTOP FOLDER LMFAO. it blew my mind that people had to go manually create a desktop folder, I had never thought to add checking if that folder exists to the code.
Yeah, OneDrive became an instant uninstall for me because of how it works. I have 2TB of empty cloud storage that I would love to use, but refuse to completely rework my file structure. I am not going to move literally everything. I'll let you read my boring ass work shit, I don't care, I let Google do it probably when I upload shit to drive, I just want to organize things the way I have them, because that's how they work.
Yep. I have 1 app that requires Windows (or Mac) that I use once every 4 or 5 weeks. I run Win 10 in a VM for that.
I don't know about such claims. I've just finished installing W10 on one of my laptops.
Use case? BMW coding tools are only built for Windows and using them via wine doesn't really work.
As a long time Linux use I can't even describe what I'm feeling right now.
Can you do a Windows VM for that?
I could sure, with usb passthrough, but the laptop is pretty shit, so it would just be painful and truthfully, I was also curious about how shitty W10 has gotten over the past 10 years.
I will reinstall linux after I'm done with it anyway.
Dude. American here. FUCK Windows 11 and fuck Microsoft for being what they are. Damn unethical pushy creepy bastards.
gates caught an std. same as windows
Mmmmm, not according to massgrave. You get 4 years more.
2032 is the cutoff for IOT LTSC, so 6 years actually.
With security patches?
Huh? I'm having no issues with vsCode, and while I haven't used Discord in ages I didn't have problems with it either. Both are electron. Got any links about these issues handy?
Isn't like the whole UI using Electron at this point?
Didn't they rewrite the start menu to electron?
Use Linux, get freedom
Hopefully SteamOS Desktop is released some months before then, so that people have a comfy Linux to welcome them.
I'd still be on 7 if they didn't non-consensually update my machine.
I walked into my room one day and my computer was in the middle of downdating from 7 to 10, without ever asking me. I held my breath and unplugged the thing from the wall. Luckily nothing happened and it booted back into 7 and I went in and removed every single notion of any update I could, short of physically opening my HDD and removing the physical sections of the platter. Ended up switching to 10 at 11pm on the night 7 ended support. Eh.
There's actually an ESU bypass for Windows 7 that provided updates until January 2026.
Yeah, i also removed all the update bullshit, multiple times. It updated while i was at work.
I think people hate win11 outside of Germany too. Lookup how to switch win 10 to iot ltsc (aka alphabet soup) I did this quickly and easily with the only issues being desktop icons rearranged (take a screen grab reference Prior if you care) and unfortunately my automatic updates don't work for some reason (I've seen rumors about drive parti on issues maybe being the reason) but I can download and install updates manually still until 2032.
Been daily-driving Linux for several months now. There are literally zero critical workflows that I can't do just because I'm not on Windows.
40% of things I use my PC for are browser-based. 40% have an equivalent FOSS app. 10% are Windows apps that run fine using Wine. The other 10% I can live without.
Get off American monopoly tech. The desktop is the easiest.
A GNU/Linux desktop has endless advantages and doesn't include the anti-features.
Linux, in some form, runs a lot of your life already, even if you don't know it.
If your a tech, you really should deeply know Linux/UNIX anyway.
Im on the WIndows 10 Extended support. I'm either going to risk staying on 10, or move to linux. The big problems for me are 1 ) Visual studio doesn't run on linux so I'd either have to learn a new editor or do a VM... I suppose 2) Gaming. A lot can happen in 8 months for improvements. But this might be the thing that holds me on Windows for a while. Saw a video of native Dota2 on linux runs like shit. 3) A solid remote desktop replacement. One that's as good or better than what I'm using.
For coding, you could use VSCode, which is not the same as VS but it has enough extensions to probably support your use-case?
There's also KATE and some other project written in Rust, if you want a proper application and not just a glorified website running locally.
I've usedJetBrains on Linux for years, it's a dream.
RustDesk has been my remote desktop replacement. Chross platform so you can try it on Windows before you switch to see if it checks your boxes.
Linux-native Dota is a bit worse than Windows Dota, to the point that I tried to run it in Proton instead (doesn't work). With the right start config (-dx11) it runs fine though. Same for Deadlock, it was almost unplayable without -dx11.
Gaming is my big issue. But now that my quality gaming time with family has gone from Warzone to ARC Raiders, it's a far less daunting concern. I'll probably wait and see if DMZ 2 supports Linux, which sadly I doubt, and if that game will cost
I just switched from Windows to Linux a few weeks ago. Not sure about a replacement for visual studio, but I haven't had an issue finding an open source application to do anything I did in windows. As for gaming, it works way better than I expected it to, but it's still not as good overall IMHO. Some games run better without all the bloat of Windows 11, other games run way worse because they aren't optimized in Linux, it's been a bit of a crapshoot. For remote desktop, I use the thincast client to connect to other machines, and XRDP on my VMs. Thincast and xrdp work together better than AVD and the Windows App, by a longshot.
But they so generously extended their blackmail ultimatum date support!! Why won't people switch? It's so weird. Don't they know that MS CEO Satya Nadela ($1.1 Bil) has their best interest at heart, always?
I'm not exactly rejecting it, but I can't afford to build a new computer that can run it till the AI bubble bursts.
Try to get a simple Linux distribution instead (Mint or Ubuntu). Depending on what you are using your computer for it might be just as good, even faster, than windows.
It's not a popular answer but you can get by with an older PC running Linux KVM. Windows 11 is fine as a guest OS, unless you need kernel level DRM from some applications.
On my gaming PC I never signed up for any sort of Win10 extended support but it still wants to update regularly. Did they just give up and give the extended support to everyone?
Put Linux on an old gaming laptop. Thing runs much better on Linux than Windows ever has.
I think you got the extra year just for signing in with an MS account
Damn, that sucks. When does my Arch support end?
Nuance
Okay if you wanna get technical, some folks define support as meaning some sort of official paid support process, in which case there is none at all. But I feel like a funnier joke would be that Arch "support" lasts until there's any sort of update to any package you have.
The entire article is based on a false premise:
With ESU, you can still get security updates and minor fixes or improvements, but the catch is that extended support ends on October 13, 2026.
Not true, there are three years of ESU updates available.
Do you have a source for that? Everything including Microsoft itself I find tells me that free ESU support for private users will end in Oct 26. Do you mean some paid feature for companies or so?
I just know they said from the start that you could buy three years at escalating prices. Then later, closer to the original end of support they made the first year of ESU free for users in the EEA, and then they made it buy-able for reward points or something like that for everyone.
tells me that free ESU support for private users will end in Oct 26
You're probably right on that
You can activate 3 years of updates for free with Microsoft Activation Scripts: https://massgrave.dev/windows10_eol
You are talking about the business extension that was already available everywhere, but it requires buying it. I haven't looked into it but I haven't seen anything saying it was free. The article is talking about Germany and the free version that Europe forced Microsoft to enable for everyone, even without a subscription - but only in Europe. That one is only one year.
The link I shared contains steps to activate the 3-year extension for free, on a non-business computer. I don't care if this extension is marketed towards business accounts. You can activate all 3 years on your personal computer for free.
Piracy is usually free yeah but that really doesn't count.
I honestly think it's a bit of a stretch to call it piracy when the open-source code is hosted on Microsoft-owned Github, and Microsoft support has been caught using it themselves: https://www.bleepingcomputer.com/news/security/microsoft-support-cracks-windows-for-customer-after-activation-fails/
With how Microsoft are handling updates lately, no longer getting them might actually be a selling point
Honestly, its like they are fighting to drown the company. Microslop.
If only there were some kind of alternative... I would call it "Linux"
I miss WinXP. Simply the best, imo.
That's not how you spell "Windows 7".
XP properly started the rubbish which keeps piling up in Windows 11. Remember the online activation, for example?
Still, Windows XP was much more user friendly/user respecting than 11 is.
It was your computer, and it was friendly.
One of my random Linux boot-up sounds is the WinXP boot theme.
Does anyone has an easy way to put windows 98 sounds on Linux? I would love to have it for one day (and probably revert after, just enough to deal with nostalgia)
Oh no! Anyway...
Fr
Eight months to learn Linux is a LONG time. You’ll be fine.
WINDOWS MENTIONED.
#!/bin/bash
DEPLOY LINUX ARMY
Time to switch to linux, then.
they were hounding me every fucking day on my only windows device, so I blocked all windows update domains on my pihole.
I don't use it often, but use it to do 3D modeling/slicing.
I need a new PC for Windows 11. So I thought I’ll wait as long as possible. The later, the less expensive a good machine will be. 🤦🏻♂️
...SSD and RAM prices are not gonna get better unless the AI bubble pops. I wouldn't wait to get at least those two things.
The only reason I'm still in Windows is because I use Clip Studio Paint as my main art program (and while it is on Wine, the compatibility is extremely poor) and I also play certain FPS games with anti-cheat that's incompatible with Linux. If those two problems are solved (which is one thing I'm banking Valve to do with SteamOS) then I'll ditch Windows permanently. Until then, maybe the next time I install I'll use Win11 LTSC which doesn't come with any of Microsoft's AI bullshit (or even the Microsoft Store at all) with the only downside being new versions taking 3 years to arrive instead of one.
BTW: If ya'll are in Windows 11 against your will and want to remove all AI features, check this out. Essentially it's a script that will delete all AI from your system. I would recommend reading the documentation, but all you need to do is open Terminal/Powershell as admin and run this command:
I'm pretty much in the same situation you're in. I use Clip Studio Paint and a 24-year Photoshop user, and finding a suitable alternative to both is a crapshoot. I'm gonna try GIMP and Krita again, but I'm not optimistic...
GIMP has always been kinda ass tbh. I used it back then to make gifs and that was the only thing in that program that wasn't a pain to do.
When GIMP's version 3 came out, it got a lot of great reviews. I can't tell you what's different or better, but in using it myself since then, it doesn't "feel" as daunting. Very subjective, but definitely try it out again; it might work for you this time around.
Going from Photoshop to GIMP 3, it's just not the same. I have a lot of respect for the project, but there are so many rough edges that it's demoralizing at best.
Here's an example: in Photoshop, I select an object with the smart select brush (not available in GIMP), copy and paste it and it ends up on a new layer. I can drag the new layer around and draw on it. In GIMP, I paste a rectangle and the layer bounds are exactly locked to the paste area, so if I do something like feather the edges or try to draw on it I get a block of pixels. Without looking it up, can you tell me how to make the active layer size match the canvas size? And if I drag that layer, will it move the pixels or will it offset that layer and force me to rerun the "layer to document size" process?
Not that Adobe hasn't done a ton of Enshittification, but CS6 was pretty great for me.
Affinity is much more usable than the gimp. I hear good things about it with crossover (commercial wine). If you’re willing to spend a bit of money (not an exorbitant amount).
I've tried Affinity, it's got a few dealbreakers.
No ability to save a workspace or have it be cohesive across projects. Searched online to see if there was a fix for it and there's not, you just have to set up your desired workspace for every single new project you start. Controls are not intuitive, i.e. right click does not bring up brush size menu. Can't select parts of the drawing and just flip horizontal/vertical, you have to put it on a new layer and do a bunch of extra stuff to flip it. Also tried to import my PS brushes into Affinity and a lot of them had broken or mangled textures or just, did not operate the same and no amount of finagling could restore them to how they were.
I really wanted to like it but it's still got some kinks that need to be worked out.
Honestly my video game addiction is the reason I'm still on Windows. I play league and they only support Windows now. I've tried dual booting but it's just not a smooth experience. I'm going to end up on Windows to play league at some point and sometimes I want to squeeze in a cheeky game during the day and not just at night.
I haven't figured out a solution that works for me yet but I'm open to ideas. I also don't have a solid solution for playing TFT or league on my steamdeck besides dual booting Windows and that's not going to happen.
Not dual booting will cure your League addiction.
A far better script for all in one Windows debloating and software installation (literally avoid opening Edge at all) is this, it can also handle removing copilot:
Given the sloth's track record of the last several months it makes sense to steer clear of the shitshow
Never went with Win 11. Tried jump to Linux, played with it for a week I believe, quite recently. Tinkering aside (mostly due to learning so not so bad, last distro change I got it all up to where I wanted it within an hour after install, because I finally knew what I was doin xD) my main problem is that Linux doesn't really use my specs well.
I have an older system and on Windows, I can punch above my league with running shit like Hogwarts Legacy or Fallout 76 on my i5-4460 and GTX 750, while on Mint, CachyOS and Nobara Fallout 76 struggled hard to run fluidly, liked to flicker and freeze, and Hogwarts Legacy couldn't even get into menu. And I am not really willing to give up on these two for now.
But other than that I found that no matter the distro, shit just...works. The worst part I think was that drivers for my old GPU are shitty on linux, but if you have in hardware from the last decade, I'd say just try it. All apps and shit you need is mostly handled by package repositories (something like app stores) and if your software isn't there, check it's website, maybe they have .deb or .rpm packages which are pretty much Linux .exe files. Or a simple command to download it via terminal.
I have old Brother printer and even tho Linux community labels it papwerweight, Brother actually has full drivers for linux installed via copy-paste commands they give you on their website. With full instructions how to do it step by step. So really, if you didn't try it yet, consider.
If you haven't tried it, give Bazzite a shot. Been running it for a year or so at this point, minimal complaints and it runs like a champ with minimal issues and the GPU drivers are built into the image. Might be worth a shot to see if it helps your rig run better
My hardware (GPU) is literally too old and unsupported according to Bazzite itself xD
My experience has been the same. As a software engineer who used Linux throughout university, I just can't enjoy having a lousy experience with poor performance, constant tinkering, limited software and constant bugs. I can't even adjust the DPI scale of an external monitor on Ubuntu without the entire windowing system going haywire.
I guess I'm just too old to have the patience to try to fix that kind of stuff by hand, and I thought I'd never say it, but I just like Windows 11. It works. Sue me.
Too lazy to set up computer again. massgrave.dev will carry me for a few more years, and then it's time for a new build anyway.
for anyone afraid to make the jump to linux do it, now is the time. especially if you have an amd gpu unless you absolutely need software/games that does not support linux (and I dont mean the millions of windows games proton supports effortlessly, just a handful with kernel ac, and some pro software)
too daunting to research and learn? try in a vm and use llms to help you understand how things work
took me a week to get comfortable in arch linux after around two decades of windows
virii still work w/o upgrade
Thats some actually great news!
I tried Mint about a year ago, and one of the things I really didn't like was having to get my software from some appstore. It seemed very limited. I'd much rather just be able to download an executable and install it that way. Feels like I have more control over what I can actually use my pc for.
There are like 15 ways to install software in Mint. The app store is just for people who don't like to Google or who are scared of breaking something
In that case people are shit at explaining it. I tried googling it back then, and all I could get was dumb answers that didn't actually give an answer to the questions.
You can with mint tho? You don't have to use the app store
...hey, I'm a newb to Linux but I tried Mint and don't they have like two-three app managers plus they can install .deb files? Like, .deb and .rpm are basically Linux take on .exe installers.
That comes from using Linux for, overall, a week.
Mint can install from the appstore, or a user can install .deb files (since it's Debian based) they download from the web. It's also compatible with Flatpak files or Appimage files.
It cannot use .rpm files. Those are only compatible with Fedora, openSUSE, Redhat, and a handful of others.