A solution to windows PC requirements

First and foremost, I'm pretty much device agnostic at home; I use what works for the job I am doing and/or what work have given me to use. Currently that means I have a Win10 Laptop upstairs on the trainer (which I should really bump to Win11), a Win11 gaming PC and a MacBook Pro for work.

BUTT... I also have a bunch of random Linux systems around the place, including live USBs for more different flavours than I can easily count.

Windows, by and large, just works for what I want. It is sometimes annoying, sometime frustrating, but generally just works. If things get out of date, it usually reminds me to update them. Mac does the same thing, but prettier. Linux, is, well, more of an involved challenge sometimes.

I get its niche. I understand the advantages, I want to use it a lot mor than I do, but I have spent literal years trying to get thigns working on Linux systems that should be five minutes, but end up being solid days of updating specific libraries and virtual environments. Hell, the last time I did serious playing with something like that was a PDF forensics package that was written for Python 2.x and needed a lot of messing around to even be remotely functional on Python 3.12. It's still not fully functional.

I think that is what Windows and Mac offer the massess: "It just works most of the time" with enough messaging to advertise that to the public. Linuxx still has the slightly off-putting nerdy image of peole that like getting their hands dirty, despite everything that the Pi and countless other things have repeatedly shown the world.

Proton and SteamOS are driving things forward for gaming and by association I'd like to hope Bluetooth drivers and such will get caught in the wake.

It's still a long way from a Windows/Mac experience but we can hope.

Why are you having to constantly buy Windows keys?

Windows, by and large, just works for what I want.

This is true.. I have a fairly powerful gaming pc in my bedroom .. But my smaller one in the lounge is a 6th gen i5 with an AMD rx480 gpu.. It runs my most demanding games fine.. 70+fps.

But it won't run win11 without some ****tery and win10 is EOL so I'm just kind of preparing myself really..

Yes I can buy a cheap win 11 key for a fiver and then try to hack it a bit, but why should I?

Why are you having to constantly buy Windows keys?

I'm not... Not sure where you got that idea.

Not sure where you got that idea.

From the OP.

Windows licensing costs and other requirements are becoming an issue

Proton and SteamOS are driving things forward

Nabara comes with a 'special' version of proton which is apparently better than the ones in steam.. I forget what it's called exactly..

So that's what I'm in currently But I'm reserving judgements on that until I get to grips with things a bit better.

One of the confusing things for me currently is the terminology.. Packages, flat packs, etc.

Strangely I do have an apple iPad which is great but I hate the OS.. But I only use that as a web browser /media player when I'm in bed, lol! It's great for that but useless for anything else.

From the OP.

My bad.. I didn't articulate my thoughts very well.

My apologies. What I meant was I don't really want to try to hack win11 onto my living room PC.. Aside from the privacy issues.. My perfectly good media center PC doesn't meet the official requirements, and i'm kind of super annoyed about that as the hardware is perfectly capable.

I'm not going to get rid of a perfectly decent PC, or use dodgy work arounds just because Microsoft tells me that.

FWIW, MS has decent reasons for having that cut-off with Win10 and the limitations for the upgrade to Win11 (TPM version). They are, I believe, trying to do things securely, but allowing older, less structurally secure hardware to run an OS designed to use that as a base to build from, kind of undermines their aims.

Privacy issues notwithstanding (and that's a topic for another discussion if you use Chrome), I feel your pain. But if it is a media centre you want, Linux is probably a decent choice. Just double check the repos, don't add random apps to it and check the hashes of everything you download.

MS has decent reasons for having that cut-off with Win10 and the limitations for the upgrade to Win11 (TPM version).

I respectully disagree...my motherboard has the correct TPM capabilities, the only reason I can run win11 in the normal sense is my i5 6600k is to old for 'reasons'.

it's not a new chip, granted, but it can run forza on pretty high settings (70+fps) @1440p @120hz with HDR....

I think I'm just done with microsoft, really.... it's not only the above but the really intrusive windows account crap and privacy concerns that are baked into win11.

But I digress... I;m only experimenting so far, and so far, I like what I see with linux.

Yes I can buy a cheap win 11 key for a fiver and then try to hack it a bit, but why should I?

Why do you think you need to buy a new key? Its free to upgrade using your existing key.

FWIW I had exactly the same issue, TPM was fine but a 6th gen i3, I did the registry entry and it worked fine for the upgrade.

Privacy is only an issue if you have a copilot capable chipset which yours isn't, otherwise it's the same as 10.

Just so you know.

Why do you think you need to buy a new key?

We are going off topic... windows keys are not the problem. I think all my windows keys have been pirated/grey market since I got bummed without lube with an official OEM vista licence that was EOL about 1 year after I paid about 90 quid for an oficcial OEM licence......never again will I pay for a windows licence, or at least not more than a fiver!

But really I want to move away from windows, and I detest IOS - so it looks like I'm learning linux, lol!

I'm just waiting for horizon5 to finish downloading before the next headache begins!

But I've installed linux on it's own SSD, with my windows sys drive physically disconnected in the case..so as not to confuse the boot process.

Take note Microsoft.

That it almost works as well as Windows with a good degree of buggering about? I'm sure they're quakeing in their boots.

the really intrusive windows account crap

Huh?

But I’ve installed linux on it’s own SSD, with my windows sys drive physically disconnected in the case..so as not to confuse the boot process.

Unless you're planning on hopping cables around you'd probably have been better off leaving the other drive connected so they're aware of each other.

Another slight annoyance is my audio stopped working as it decided to default to audio over HDMI to my LG tv, (for reasons unknown) which is plugged in but I'm not curently using. (my monitor is DP and doent have speakers, and I have PC speakers plugged into the audio out on the motherboard I/O backplate.

So I shut down, disconected the Linux SSD, reconected the windows SSD,  re-booted and had the same problem in windows - it defaulted to an audio device that I didn't want to use, so I had to manually switch it back to the mobo speaker output.

This is certainly going to be a learning curve, but I'm excited!

Crikey! Is this a new bottom bracket standard or something? Confused/impressed emoji.

Unless you’re planning on hopping cables around you’d probably have been better off leaving the other drive connected so they’re aware of each other.

One step at a time for me..but I do have an awsome new PC case, so I can shut down, dis-connect/re-connect new drives and be back up and running in 60 seconds.. it's pretty damn cool..

A lian li Lancool II... it's this one..but I bought it on special offer a few weeks ago for about £55 https://www.overclockers.co.uk/lian-li-lancool-ii-mesh-c-performance-midi-tower-case-black-ca-79r-ll.html

Please don't rate my cable management!!!

Privacy is only an issue if you have a copilot capable chipset

Can someone explain this to me? Thx

Can someone explain this to me? Thx

Copilot is microsoft AI bull poop. Built to harvest user data and annoy the user.

I made the move to Linux about 6 months ago. I dual boot on my gaming PC as there are some games I play on line that rely on anti-cheat software that they have blocked on Linux.

I decided I liked the KDE desktop environment as it was familiar. I tried Kubuntu, KDE Neon, Debian with KDE and settled on Fedora KDE. Mainly due to some of the improvements with Wayland support weren't available in the others.

All my Steam games play without a hitch.

Not sure what I'll do about Windows once support ends, I also have a couple of games I purchased on the xBox platform that I can't migrate to Linux and would have to buy again. Will possibly just stop playing them.

I have some privacy concerns about windows 11 and like you @mattyfez, not sure I want the hassle of tweaking windows only to have to change things again every time an update lands.

Having had a Steam Deck for a while with no faff at all, I had a look around for something that would replicate it for a Mini PC (Minisforum UM780XTX) connected up to the living room TV (LG C3 4K OLED) Have to say I'm super impressed with Bazzite, got the image that boots straight into the Steam big picture mode, so ideal just to use with just a controller. But it'll easily switch into desktop mode if needed. It's based on Fedora with KDE for the desktop, but its optimised for gaming with Proton etc.. and comes with everything setup and ready to run. Another plus is that its an immutable distro, so super stable and really really hard to bugger up.

Funily enough, I almost tried Bazzite, but installed Nobara instead on a bit of a whim after a reccomendation...just as a test drive really.

I'm still experimenting though ..I'll see how I go...I really want a window/mac style UI with steam, rather than a tablet style UI if you know what I mean.

When you download Bazzite you have the option of hardware type (various handheld models, laptops and desktops) GPU, desktop type and then desktop or big picture to start up into via the menus to select the right image.  Forza 4 works fine for me, as does Tiny Tinas Borderlands, Skyrim, Dragon Age, Elden Ring, No Mans Sky, The Witcher, World of Tanks and more.

@squirrelking what is the registry entry thing please? My PC is only incompatible because of processor Intel core i7-6700 3.4Gh. Cheers!

A lian li Lancool II…

I'm glad Lian Li are still going. They were the gamer's case of choice back when I cared about such things, sometime around the late Jurassic.

Please don’t rate my cable management!!!

You'd weep if you saw mine. It's a regular minitower and it is full. It's a poster boy for "hey kids, let me show you what computers used to look like!"

Please, no cable management ratings! I wanted a small case, so chose a Coolermaster ITX thing and it was a challenge and a half getting everything to fit, let alone routing the cables properly.

And then the cat discovered that it was a warm place to sit near and I have to include cat hair removal as part of the maintenance cycle.

I mainly bought it as my decent gaming PC is still housed in a lian-li pca10-a...  but it's a bit old skool now.. this new one is better but there's no way in hell I can be bothered to swap the cases around!

https://www.techpowerup.com/review/lian-li-pc-a10b/3.html

Like this but the brushed ali version rather than the black version.

We are going off topic… windows keys are not the problem

Lol, I was quoting you. I get you want to try Linux and best of luck to you. Why did you go with Fedora though rather than Arch based (for Steam OS), Bazzite or Pop! OS?

Oh and SNAP! I also have that case, it's very nice but dual booting is nicer (and should be very simple).

Can someone explain this to me? Thx

@vlad_the_invader Co-pilot capable chips have the Recall feature enabled by default and AFAIK home users cannot turn the feature off. This takes a snapshot of whatever you're doing every 5 seconds or something like that which a lot of people are very unhappy about. It's all locally stored BUT it only takes an exploit to be found and that's a LOT of personal or company data compromised.

My work are turning it off by default but we're doing enterprise licensing so it's different to Home and possibly Pro.

@jordan https://www.partitionwizard.com/news/processor-not-supported.html

Linux POWER..6600k & AMD rx480 😉

Death to microsoft, etc.

When you download Bazzite you have the option of hardware type (various handheld models, laptops and desktops) GPU, desktop type and then desktop or big picture to start up into via the menus to select the right image. Forza 4 works fine for me, as does Tiny Tinas Borderlands, Skyrim, Dragon Age, Elden Ring, No Mans Sky, The Witcher, World of Tanks and more.

Thanks! Good to know..if I struggle with Nobara, it's on my list of distros to try out.

Some good info in this thread, will need to give some of the Linux suggestions a try.

I'm still puzzled by the seemingly high-bar Windows 11 CPU restrictions though - there will be some seriously powerful machines that are "unsupported".

will need to give some of the Linux suggestions a try.

You can download and test drive them from a USB flash drive... no commitment... use Rufus or Ventoy and off you go....

It's all about TPM 2.0 though the 6th gen can support that. AMD isn't an issue they didn't make that **** up.

It’s all about TPM 2.0 though the 6th gen can support that. AMD isn’t an issue they didn’t make that **** up.

I don't care... I've spun up a random linux distro, and apart from a few qwibbles, its works really well, and it works right out of the box.

Apart from asking me to pay money or buy new hardware, what does microsoft or apple have to offer me? NOTHING.

It's a bit like shagging an ex girlfriend....never a good idea!

Don't get me wrong. I've flipped back to windows tonight... just for convinience, but I have no intention staying on windows in the long term... my transition is in progress!

I only swapped to Windows 10 a few years back was running 7 long after it was discontinued. Didn't get any viruses and the PC is still running fine now. I mean I'm not recommending it, but it didn't burst into flames and lose all those precious ones and zeros.

TBH my i5 2500K (a beautiful vintage) is long past it's best to say the least but it still works well. Just not for the latest and greatest games and some applications that hammer mutlithreading. If I upgrade (I will at some point) I'd also have to bin my posh(ish) soundcard with breakout box because the bus type has been binned off and driver support has long since stopped, that's a Windows 8 driver installed using compatibility mode!

Lian Li (long time ago now) used to do a really nice brushed alloy case that was well made, subtle but didn't cost the earth.

I’d also have to bin my posh(ish) soundcard with breakout box

Sound cards are pretty much redundant these days, onboard sound is fine for 99.9% of people, unless its for profesional studio/production use...

The others are people trying to sell you sound cards.

unless its for profesional studio/production use… so 0.25%

Yes that's what it's for. It has various inputs, phono, midi and quarter inch jacks.

I know onboard has been more than good enough for a long time now. Still not sure they match the signal to noise ratio or latency of most outboard interfaces though!

@vlad_the_invader Co-pilot capable chips have the Recall feature enabled by default and AFAIK home users cannot turn the feature off. This takes a snapshot of whatever you’re doing every 5 seconds or something like that which a lot of people are very unhappy about. It’s all locally stored BUT it only takes an exploit to be found and that’s a LOT of personal or company data compromised.

Yeah, that sounds pretty stupid...thanks for the heads up.

Damn. I was about to apologise for my bad maths and my ninja edit.. Then you come along and...

Boom!

Co-pilot capable chips have the Recall feature enabled by default and AFAIK home users cannot turn the feature off.

Happy to be corrected if you have a source for that but, AIUI, the user has to enable it, it's disabled by default. I don't think it's going to be the huge deal that MS thinks it will be (basically, it'll just OCR screenshots to help you search for things on your PC), but I don't think it's the security problem that critics think it is either - it runs locally so if hackers can access your Recall screenshots, they already have access to everything on your PC anyway.

I don't have a PC with the hardware to run it but if I did, I would just check that it's disabled and go about things as normal.

Not true.. I've had that copilot bs turn up unannounced on my laptop.

I’ve had that copilot bs turn up unannounced on my laptop.

Copilot is not the same thing as Recall. Copilot is an AI assistant, which can be pretty useful for some things.

Recall takes a screenshot every 5 seconds and then allows you to search to find stuff that you've worked on in the past. It only runs on very specific hardware, apparently has to be enabled to run, and, AFAIK, is only currently available to people who have signed up for the insider preview service. Your laptop has Copilot but not Recall unless you've gone to the trouble of installing it.

I had a DfE advanced hunting script to detect people that had enabled Recall on the work Windows devices. Not much use here, but I think the docs do say that it's off by default now.

As for Copilot. Yeah, MS (and about everyone else) is trying to roll AI into everything so they can find what works and what doesn't. I generally opt out of that crap and disable what I can. I've not needed to with this machine (I type on my Win11 gaming box), but my old Win10 has a Copilot search button thanks to the last update. It never gets used.

The currently defined chatbots that 'are' AI are everywhere now. Your data, no matter which service you use, will be used to train a model somewhere.

Cougar2
Huh?

I think they mean that Microsoft are disabling more and more of the workarounds that allow you to install Windows without signing into a Microsoft account.

Personally I'm not a big privacy nut or anything, but I'm still getting close to the point that I'm uncomfortable with the amount of data gathering that Microsoft wants to do in a default install.  For example I'd still rather not have all the keystrokes I've made being recorded or all my activity being screenshotted.

Microsoft now allowing Windows 11 on older, incompatible PCs | PCWorld

It looks like you might be able to get away with older PC's for a while longer.

 I’m uncomfortable with the amount of data gathering that Microsoft wants to do in a default install.  For example I’d still rather not have all the keystrokes I’ve made being recorded or all my activity being screenshotted.

The screenshotting feature isn't currently available in a default install and the default setting is that it's disabled.

thols2

The screenshotting feature isn’t currently available in a default install and the default setting is that it’s disabled.

You're talking about the AI thing I think,  I'm talking about Windows Timeline, maybe it doesn't use screenshots to generate its previews but the point stands.

I think they mean that Microsoft are disabling more and more of the workarounds that allow you to install Windows without signing into a Microsoft account.

That's not what I was "huh?"ing at. Rather, as I quoted,

really intrusive windows account crap

How is it "really intrusive crap"? If you use a MS account to login it will back up your digital licence keys and gives you a bunch of synchronisation features. If for some bizarro reason you don't want free OneDrive storage you can create a local account by not connecting it to the internet during setup.

If for some bizarro reason you don’t want free OneDrive storage you can create a local account by not connecting it to the internet during setup.

I don't think that works any more (ETA: Though some media creation tools still modify the installer to allow it).

Also, being able to login to my laptop when I happen to be somewhere without convenient internet I don't think is that "bizarro".

Cougar2
How is it “really intrusive crap”? If you use a MS account to login it will back up your digital licence keys and gives you a bunch of synchronisation features. If for some bizarro reason you don’t want free OneDrive storage you can create a local account by not connecting it to the internet during setup.

This is what I was saying about the workarounds. Grab a current ISO of 11 and try that, I don't think it works any more, nor does the wrong password trick. I think oobe\bypassnro is still working.

And how's it intrusive? Well I can't answer that for the original poster, but my own view is that I don't trust them to keep my data safe and basically don't see any valid reason for them knowing what I'm up to and linking that back to a centralised account anyway.

If it offers something really useful to me in future, that might change, but right now it doesn't.

You’re talking about the AI thing I think,  I’m talking about Windows Timeline, maybe it doesn’t use screenshots to generate its previews but the point stands.

The AI thing is called Copilot, it has nothing to do with screenshotting.

The screenshot thing is called Recall, it's different to Timeline. Timeline is available on Windows 10, and you can turn it off if it bothers you.

Recall is only available on Win11 and requires a neural processing unit. PCs with this capability are called Copilot+ because the NPU is designed to run AI. This is not the same thing as having Copilot on your PC (hence the + in the name). Even if your PC can run Recall, you have to enable it before it starts screenshotting your work.

oobe\bypassnro is still working

was a few weeks ago. we use pcs for control of our machines and set them up without a ms account. if we don't it starts trying to put our underlying system files in the cloud which does not go well at all...

linux is all well and good for the OP, clearly, but what about those of us with an nvidia card? are there drivers available for those yet? asking for a friend who has a 1080 and otherwise decent gaming pc. i, err, my friend likes the sound of bazzite...

linux is all well and good for the OP, clearly, but what about those of us with an nvidia card? are there drivers available for those yet?

Only since the early 2000s NVidia has basically always had Linux drivers!

Pop! OS claims to run AMD and Nvidia natively.

I'm waiting to see what Steam do, there's a lot of speculation that 3.0 is going to get a public release soon.

Also, being able to login to my laptop when I happen to be somewhere without convenient internet I don’t think is that “bizarro”.

You don't need to be online to login using a Microsoft account.

NVidia has basically always had Linux drivers!

Ha! Where the hell did I pick up that idea then? Thanks!

You can run nvidia cards on linux... they are supported but it seems AMD cards tend to be better catered for (read less faff) in certain situations depending...

It depends what you want compatibility with.  The MS business model is based around adding features to its products that make them a bit flashier at the expense of compliance with open standards.  Also, the respective office suites do not create round-trip compatible documents  or at least didn't a few years ago.

Now I don't have to be compatible with an MS workplace, my Windows usage has dropped to zero.  But that is only because I am using Mrs g's old Macbook for Zwift and stuff.  Also my requirements are quite modest and I am a bit nerdy Linux-wise (I run Gentoo....)

So an update!

I've only had time to prat about with it off and on, over the last few days.. so I'm still duel booting with windows...

So far it works REALLY well for a windows replacement for general desk jockeying.

I've managed to get Forza Horizon 5 to run via Steam, and authenticated it via MS**

Random Steam games work really well.

I'm really impressed with the multi screen functionality... I can run movies on my TV (LG oled 4k) from the pc Via HDMI @1440/120hz !!!

It's a bit of a learning curve... but basic games like portal2 etc...they just run.

I've stlil not managed to reliably connect my Xbox seris s pad via bluetooth, but it works flawlessly if I plug it in via USB_c Cable.

**FH5 is running, but only at about 40FPS and the audio is glitching....  so there's some more figuring out to do there, maybe I'm running the wrong version of Proton.

**my GPU (rx480) only supports 4k@60hz so I'm running it at 1440@120hz which both my TV and GPU support.

Executive summary:

I could flush windows down the toilet right now if I didn't want to play "triple A games"

As there's a lot of Linux talk on this thread, I'm going to ask if anyone has any tips for successful 4k video editing on Linux. By successful, I mean, playback within the editor that doesn't stutter and slow to a crawl when the playhead reaches the start of a clip (no filters). I've been using Shotcut recently, works well with 2.7k and thought I'd try recording in 4k but continuing editing in 2.7k to give more zoom/pan flexibility. The jump to 4k hasn't gone well! I'd expect my H/W to be capable - 32gb DDR4 ram, Intel i5 12600 CPU (Alder Lake), NVMe SSD storage. Using Fedora with Cinnamon.

I run Gentoo

I spent about a year using it many years ago, then  went with Arch Linux for about a decade until the other year when I realized I no longer had time or inclination to keep getting my hands so dirty with system configuration. Hence Fedora.

Hence Fedora.

I think what I'm running 'nobara' is based on Fedora, but with the plasma/KDE user interface.

I saw a thread on Bluesky the other day saying how Linux was good these days and easy to do, and i thought, hmm, maybe i should give it a go with the old mac mini that will soon be redundant here.

Anyway, having skim read this thread i have decided that this would be a miserable undertaking that would make me hate life. So thanks all for setting me straight...

Using Linux is great until it suddenly isn't.

Using Linux is great until it suddenly isn’t.

And this is why we duel boot with windows until we are happy, and also why we have backups.

This little experimiment has cost me about £26 for a cheap 500gb 2.5" SSD.. and quite a few hours of learing and frustration...

Basically my aim is to move away from Windows and IOS, and so far, it's working very well. I've rebooted into windows now, it's a familiarity thing I guess, (Stockholm syndrome?) but it takes like, less than 90 seconds to shutdown and reboot into linux.

old mac mini that will soon be redundant here.

Half the probelm with apple macs are, they are why they are..they work until they can'y cope, and then they are just E-waste...you can't upgrade the CPU or the RAM or the GPU.... unless you want to spend 10x what it would cost to just but a proper upgradable PC in the first place.

Using Linux is great until it suddenly isn’t.

I've been using it for 24 years, it's fine 😉

I’ve been using it for 24 years

We've all been using it since the day we first interacted with computers, in one shape or another, we just might not realise it.

We’ve all been using it since the day we first interacted with computers, in one shape or another, we just might not realise it.

I can assure you, sonny, I wasn't using Linux since I first started "interacting" with computers 🙂

Was kind of a tongue in cheek comment... anyway here' s a tune for you...

this is why we duel boot

SSDs at dawn, the fastest read-write wins?

I can assure you, sonny, I wasn’t using Linux since I first started “interacting” with computers

I'm pretty sure my mate wasn't running Linux on his ZX81. 🙂

SSDs at dawn, the fastest read-write wins?

Very good, this needs recognition!!

https://www.techspot.com/news/105894-microsoft-now-officially-allows-windows-11-installation-unsupported.html